What a week in the Trump impeachment saga!
I remain adamant in my <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stop-calling-everything-impeachable-offense-josh-hammer">contention</a> that the present Democratic impeachment effort represents a tremendous overreach — and I feel buttressed in making that contention by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/15/house-democratic-leaders-impeachment-vote-047136">announcement</a> this week that she will not hold a House-wide vote soon to formally kick off impeachment proceedings — but national polling does appear now to be solidly (if still relatively narrowly) in favor of impeachment.
As of October 17, 2019, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/do-americans-support-impeaching-president-trump/">FiveThirtyEight </a>indicates that Americans now support impeachment by a 5.3% margin. This represents a dramatic flip from barely over one month ago, when Americans opposed impeachment by a whopping 15% margin. It is likely that White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney&#8217;s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/mulvaney-links-ukraine-aid-to-2016-probe-saying-get-over-it">comments</a> this week — which may be reasonably interpreted as offering some support for Democrats’ “quid pro quo” theory of impeachment — will redound against the president and perhaps further exacerbate that impeachment polling deficit.
The situation, on the ground, still represents something of a stalemate. Many of those close to the president, such as personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, are presently refusing to recognize House Democrats’ subpoenas; on the other hand, nettlesome former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/17/gordon-sondland-to-break-from-trump-in-impeachment-testimony-000288">testified</a> this week in a way that may cause great discomfit to the administration. Specifically, Sondland threw the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bogner-the-curious-case-of-rudy-giuliani-iran-and-armenia">problematic</a> Giuliani <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/17/770714277/read-gordon-sondlands-opening-statement-to-congress">under the bus</a>.
In any event, more broadly speaking, Pelosi seems deeply reluctant to hold a House-wide impeachment authorization vote. The fact that Pelosi seems scared to do so will, in a bit of circular logic, only further incentivize the dilatory tactics of Trump’s inner circle in terms of defying subpoenas.
The current default position from the White House and its inner circle seems to mirror the <a href="http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/worcester-v-georgia-1832">apocryphal</a> line once attributed to President Andrew Jackson: “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.” There is some historical precedent for this, albeit not much. Per <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/13/house-could-take-subpoena-enforcement-into-its-own-hands-will-it-work/">The Washington Post</a>, a congressional sergeant-at-arms has been used — at least once, during the presidency of Herbert Hoover — to detain an obstructionist witness and force him to abide by his congressional subpoena. As the Post accurately notes, “Congress can, after a brief process, detain people who refuse to provide requested information.”
There is something to be said for both sides’ positions, and former Bush administration official and current law professor John Yoo has a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nancy-pelosi-doesnt-have-to-make-impeachment-fair-but-it-still-should-be/2019/10/13/b09ce182-ec44-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html">terrific op-ed</a> earlier this week at The Washington Post that incisively analyzes this tug-of-war. As Yoo points out, extant U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_v._United_States">precedent</a> holds that the precise procedures employed during both the House impeachment process and any subsequent Senate impeachment trial represent non-justiciable issues that the judiciary cannot review. But as Yoo also argues and I have previously opined, House Democrats would be politically wise to engage in a more transparent, <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2019/10/16/democrats-defy-house-precedents-on-impeachment/">historically grounded</a>, and overall “fair” — meaning inclusion of basic procedural normal, such as full due process and the ability of the House minority to cross-examine and subpoena witnesses — impeachment process.
Impeachment and conviction of a sitting U.S. president is a radically undemocratic maneuver that overturns the results of a freely held election. True, the Constitution prescribes the impeachment process, but that process ought to be fully transparent and “fair” so as to ensure buy-in from the electorate is as close to universal as possible. At a bare minimum, it would be severely deleterious to democratic norms if most of the citizenry viewed the impeachment process as tyrannical or destabilizing.
The legal standard for impeachment is clear: It is purely political. As Alexander Hamilton <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp">explained</a> in The Federalist No. 65, impeachment of a president may be properly considered for all “offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” There is no black-letter legal guideline for what this may comprise; instead, the Constitution’s Framers relied upon Congress exercising <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stop-calling-everything-impeachable-offense-josh-hammer">prudence</a> in its political judgment.
Looking ahead, it will be fascinating to see whether Pelosi holds a House-wide impeachment authorization vote soon — and whether that planned vote (or lack thereof) affects the dilatory tactics that those close to Trump are currently employing, with respect to witness subpoenaing.
This piece will be frequently updated.

House Democrats Hold Meeting To Discuss Impeachment Inquiry

Impeachment Wire: The Latest On The Effort To Impeach President Trump

2020 Election

Democratic Party

Donald Trump

Impeachment

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

As of right now, most national head-to-head polls for the 2020 presidential general election show President Donald Trump losing to his Democratic Party presidential primary rivals. This trend generally holds, regardless of whether the nominee is any of the leading top three Democratic candidates: Former Vice President <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html">Joe Biden</a>, Sen. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_warren-6251.html">Elizabeth Warren</a> (D-MA), or Sen. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-VT).
While the Trump campaign might be tempted to rest on its laurels and sneer at the polls based upon a look back at the perceived polling debacle that was the 2016 presidential election, such a move would be just as haughty as it is myopic. As Harry Enten&#8217;s <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-just-a-normal-polling-error-behind-clinton/">article</a> from November 4, 2016 — that would be four days before the general election — presciently pointed out, in retrospect, polling from the 2016 election cycle was not actually irreconcilable with a Trump victory. Trump obviously trailed Hillary Clinton in the polls, but his victory was actually not outside the realm of polling feasibility — or even outside the realm of polling reasonableness.
As such, the 2020 Trump re-election campaign would be wise to focus on what it can do to win over a larger share of independent, moderate, and suburban voters. In doing so, the Trump campaign would be wise to look back to a much-ballyhooed part of Karl Rove&#8217;s 2004 blueprint for George W. Bush&#8217;s re-election: Specifically, that campaign&#8217;s ingenious focus on the &#8220;<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/security-moms-bushs-secret-election-weapon-gl6jc8cxr7j">security mom</a>.&#8221; The mythical &#8220;security mom,&#8221; at the time, was symbolized by the proverbial suburban mother who was worried about revanchist Islamist terrorism and sought to protect her home and family against those who would seek to kill us.
Although some of the specific animating issues have changed over the past 15 years, there is tremendous potential this election cycle for Trump to deploy similar messaging and reach out to a similar sect of voters.
Violent crime in America, despite overall dramatically declining since the 1990s, has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-in-defense-of-prosecutors">unfortunately spiked</a> over the past few years. Why isn&#8217;t Trump formally renouncing the <a href="https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20191004/he-was-released-early-from-prison-in-february-now-hes-wanted-for-murder-on-federal-hill">harrowing</a> First Step Act jailbreak law, the passage of which he apparently already <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/trump-reportedly-regrets-passage-jailbreak-first-step-act-gullible-conservatives-supported/">regrets</a>, and doubling down on &#8220;Willie Horton&#8221;-style anti-crime messaging?
Left-wing Democrats are campaigning harder than ever on anti-Second Amendment, gun-grabbing policy proposals. Why isn&#8217;t Trump leading Republicans on a 2020 platform of cracking down on the gun felons that <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/html/decriminalization-delusion-14037.html">light-on-crime</a> jurisdictions like California seem <a href="https://calmatters.org/gun-violence/2019/10/felons-firearms-california-federal-charges-gun-control-newsom/">hellbent on unleashing</a> upon the general public?
The global jihad — as embodied both by the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-designating-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, the mother&#8217;s milk of Sunni jihad, as well as more public-facing Islamist outfits like al-Qaeda and Islamic State — continues, 18 years after 9/11, to pose a threat to the U.S. homeland. Why isn&#8217;t Trump running on a platform of discussing not just the wall and border security, but also the arguably even more indispensable issue of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-border-wall-nice-interior-enforcement-nicer-josh-hammer">interior visa enforcement</a>? What about the need to radically <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-never-forget-911-we-need-rethink-how-we-josh-hammer">restructure our immigration policy</a> away from letting in largely unvetted populations of Middle Easterners?
Across the nation, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-who-will-stand-for-the-forgotten-american">neo-Confederate</a> &#8220;sanctuary&#8221; jurisdictions employ anti-<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Supremacy Clause</a> erroneous legal &#8220;reasoning&#8221; to defy <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiHsv7v4LXjAhWTHM0KHZKMB7gQFjAAegQIAxAB&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.law.cornell.edu%2Fuscode%2Ftext%2F8%2F1324&amp;usg=AOvVaw2EunpYa249SvA-oBwwFrS2">federal immigration law</a>, ignore ICE detainers on <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/another-illegal-alien-arrested-brutal-rape-notorious-sanctuary-montgomery-county/">violent criminal aliens</a>, and aid and abet the work of the transnational Mexican cartels that traffick drugs and criminals alike into the homeland. Why isn&#8217;t Trump proposing more aggressive policies to strip federal funding away from sanctuary jurisdictions and effectively message to suburban voters that the government will act to help prevent MS-13 thugs from terrorizing their neighborhoods?
There are a myriad other examples, to be sure. But to maximize its 2020 re-election chances, the Trump campaign ought to focus more intensively on appealing to moderates and suburban swing voters. In order to do so, there is no better platform than a safety and security agenda tailored to the very &#8220;security moms&#8221; that President Bush so effectively courted in 2004.

Handcuffed prisoner

HAMMER: Trump Needs To Focus On A Safety And Security Agenda For 2020

Al Qaeda

Crime

Hamas

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Jail

MS-13 Gang

National Security

As part of a promotional tour for his new book, &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Way-I-Heard-Mike-Rowe/dp/1508296219">The Way I Heard It</a>,&#8221; former &#8220;Dirty Jobs&#8221; host Mike Rowe appeared on &#8220;Fox and Friends&#8221; Wednesday morning and was inevitably asked about his response to the Democratic presidential debate that took place the night before in Ohio. As he&#8217;s famous for doing, Rowe offered some incisive commentary summing up the Democrats&#8217; economic agendas.
The Fox hosts led into their initial questions about the fourth Democratic debate by playing a few clips from the event, starting with a comment by democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) describing his plan to tax the 400 wealthiest Americans at a top rate of 97.5%.
&#8220;When you have  a half a million Americans sleeping out on the street today &#8230; and then you also have three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society, that is a moral and economic outrage,&#8221; said Sanders. &#8220;So if you are asking me, do I think we should demand that the wealthy start paying &#8212; the wealthiest top one-tenth of one percent &#8212; start paying their fair share of taxes &#8230; Yes, that&#8217;s exactly what I believe.&#8221;
The hosts then played a clip of frontrunner Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who is also running on an aggressive tax-the-rich plan. &#8220;Taxing income is not going to get you where you want to be the way taxing wealth does,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We need a wealth tax in order to make investments in the next generation.&#8221;
Asked about his response to the Democrats&#8217; various economic plans, particularly Sanders&#8217; 97.5% tax on the 400 wealthiest Americans, Rowe said, “Yeah, okay. It’s a free country. Float ‘em. Fly ‘em. Run ‘em up the old flagpole &#8212; see who salutes.&#8221;
He then offered a memorable summary of his takeaway from Tuesday&#8217;s debate. &#8220;Look, in the end you’ve got millionaires arguing with millionaires over who hates the millionaires the most,&#8221; said Rowe.
&#8220;And I guess it&#8217;s a conversation we&#8217;ll have,&#8221; he continued, &#8220;but I remember a couple of years ago, I took my meager staff over the Reagan Ranch &#8230; One of the stories they tell is the time when Ronald Reagan just finally decided he was done doing movies. He was just done because he was paying 92% of every dollar he made on films. And it was just math. He wasn&#8217;t done acting, he just looked at it and did some basic calculus and said, &#8216;Not for me anymore. It makes no sense to do this.'&#8221;
&#8220;I live in California. I just read a report that said the exodus this year as a result of a 13.5% state tax and some other tweaks to the system is unlike anything they&#8217;ve ever seen before,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So I know it&#8217;s convenient. It&#8217;s fun to kind of hate the rich and all, but in the end they&#8217;re just people and they&#8217;re going to do the math and they&#8217;re going to go where the math is better.
Asked about the plan to give every American $1000 a month to account for lost jobs due to increased automation, Rowe said, &#8220;Why not two thousand? Why not three?&#8221;
&#8220;You can&#8217;t ignore the human condition,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;We&#8217;re fundamentally lazy people. We have to be taught, I think, to not be lazy &#8230; If you give me a choice &#8212; and I don&#8217;t see myself as lazy &#8212; but if you give me a choice of the easy way or the hard way, I can&#8217;t help it, I&#8217;m going to default to the easy way.&#8221;
&#8220;Once you say, okay, free money, the next question has to be: Why not more?&#8221; said Rowe.
Asked how he thinks the increase in average income for Americans under Trump will play in 2020, Rowe said, &#8220;If I learned anything from 2016, it&#8217;s I don&#8217;t know.&#8221;
WATCH:
&nbsp;
<iframe title="Mike Rowe talks 2020 Dems&#039; wealth tax plans, new book" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w9-qF0BtDT4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Partial transcript via <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/16/mike-rowe-democrat-millionaires-arguing-over-who-h/?fbclid=IwAR0GS1HOY77ob-pXVKAeo8SetZzrWD1yMHyu2tBD1S0eR-2aEw-a8D-l4jQ">Washington Times</a>.

Mike Rowe

WATCH: Mike Rowe Gives Devastating Summary Of Democratic Candidates&#8217; Economic Agenda

Economy

Fox News

On Wednesday’s episode of “The Michael Knowles Show,” Knowles talks about the moment at the recent Democratic Party presidential primary debate when Pete Buttigieg destroys Beto O’Rourke for his stance on guns. Video and partial transcript below:
Beto O&#8217;Rourke [is] trying to play into that left lane. Beto’s campaign is falling apart, [and] there is pretty much no reason he should be at this debate anymore. And so he&#8217;s he&#8217;s been trying to signal that he&#8217;s as left as they come over the past few months. This is after a career where he played himself off mostly as a moderate in Congress — and so he obviously doesn&#8217;t believe in anything — but he felt leftism was going to bring him all the way. It looks like that&#8217;s not going to work. 
So one last try, he&#8217;s going to say that we&#8217;re going to undermine the Second Amendment. He&#8217;s going to take away all your guns, going to go door-to-door, take them all away. 
<blockquote>COOPER: How exactly are you going to force people to give up their weapons? You don&#8217;t even know who has those weapons. 
O’ROURKE: Look, we&#8217;re gonna make sure that the priority is saving the lives of our fellow Americans. I think almost everyone on this stage agrees that it&#8217;s not right, and as president, would seek to ban the sale of AR-15s and AK-47s. Those are weapons of war. They were designed to kill people effectively [and] efficiently on a battlefield. 
COOPER: To be clear, exactly how are you going to take away weapons from people who do not want to give them up and you don&#8217;t know where they are? 
O’ROURKE: If someone does not turn in an AR-15 or an AK-47 — one of these weapons of war — or brings [it] out in public and brandishes it in an attempt to intimidate, as we saw when we were at Kent State recently, then that weapon will be taken from them. If they persist, there will be other consequences from law enforcement. </blockquote>
Other consequences, so we&#8217;re going for it. I&#8217;m Beto! Hell yeah, we&#8217;re going to take your AR-15! We&#8217;re going door to door. We&#8217;re gonna get the cops to come and steal all your guns and completely undermine the Constitution. 
<iframe title="Are Democrats Finally Moderating? | The Michael Knowles Show Ep. 433" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zaEE2pKq3mE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
One thing that really bothers me — his was probably the highlight of the night, in terms of Orwellian language — every aspect of this gun debate is dishonest. So there&#8217;s no such thing as a mandatory buyback. The government didn&#8217;t sell you your gun in the first place, so it&#8217;s not going to buy it back from you. I guess you could try to buy guns from people if you&#8217;re the government, but if it&#8217;s a mandatory buyback, then you ain&#8217;t buying it. It&#8217;s not like it&#8217;s a free exchange where money is changing hands. It&#8217;s the government confiscating your weapons. Mandatory buyback, it’s absolutely outrageous.
Same thing with weapons of war. All weapons are weapons of war &#8230; all of firearm technology advances because of war, because of armed conflict. That is the impetus for improving firearm technology, that&#8217;s been true since the dawn of time and will remain true in the future. 
And then the other one is assault weapon. All weapons are assault weapons. All weapons are assault weapons, they are designed to assault you. If a weapon is not designed to assault you, it&#8217;s not a weapon. Like this leftist tears tumbler is not a weapon because it&#8217;s not meant to assault you — it&#8217;s meant to receive the leftist tears after you have been assaulted by facts and logic. So that language just goes on and on throughout the entire debate. Beto is running on it, it&#8217;s not going anywhere, he probably won&#8217;t even be at the next debate.
Pete Buttigieg, however, sees Bernie&#8217;s going far, hard left, Beto’s going hard left, [and] Liz Warren doesn&#8217;t know exactly where she wants to be. So Buttigieg sees an opening. At the early part of this primary, he was doing pretty well. He was getting some press because he was the reasonable one. He was at least pretending to be a Christian, he was at least pretending to be moderate. He was at least pretending to be a good ol&#8217; boy from the Midwest. And so Buttigieg takes on Beto O&#8217;Rourke head-on, and pretty much wipes the floor with him on the question of guns. 
<blockquote>O’ROURKE: Let&#8217;s follow their inspiration and lead, and not be limited by the polls and the consultants and the focus groups &#8230; we have time to do what&#8217;s right there. 
BUTTIGIEG: The problem isn’t the polls, the problem is the policy. And I don&#8217;t need lessons from you on courage, political or personal. Everyone on this stage is determined to get something done. Everyone on this stage recognizes — or at least I thought we did — the problem is not other Democrats who don&#8217;t agree with your particular idea of how to handle this. The problem is the National Rifle Association, and their enablers in Congress, and we should be united in taking the fight to them. </blockquote>
Poor Beto, you can see it in his eyes. He just thinks, oh man, I totally walked into that. He&#8217;s saying we need the courage to steal people&#8217;s guns and undermine the Constitution, and there&#8217;s Pete Buttigieg, who comes in — he&#8217;s one of two people on that stage who&#8217;s ever served in the military — saying I don&#8217;t need lessons from you about courage. Totally wipes the floor with him.
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-michael-knowles-show/id1266577963?mt=2">Listen to full episodes of “The Michael Knowles Show” on iTunes. </a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show">Watch “The Michael Knowles Show” on-demand! </a>

Beto O&#8217;Rourke

KNOWLES: Beto O’Rourke Placed His Faith In Leftism And Lost

Beto O'Rourke

Guns

Leftism

Progressivism

Religion

On Wednesday’s episode of “The Andrew Klavan Show,” Klavan talks about Joe Biden’s weird debate answer about raising the capital gains tax. Video and partial transcript below: 
So the MSM narrative about this debate is “Biden&#8217;s Falling, Warren’s Rising.” So everybody turned on Warren, and everybody was mean to Warren. It&#8217;s her turn in the barrel, and the media judges are kind of trying to decide: Warren is the best, but who else is good? They&#8217;re saying maybe Joe Biden won, or maybe Amy Klobuchar [won] &#8230;
But I have a completely different take on what happened. I thought the whole thing was just embarrassing. Maybe I&#8217;m so against socialist ideas — maybe life is so prejudiced against socialist ideas — that I can&#8217;t see [how] people are going to fall for this &#8230; These people just look like they are sinking into the floor. Let me just show you this clip of Joe Biden&#8217;s tax plan as he talks about why he&#8217;s going to raise taxes on the rich.
<blockquote>BIDEN: What I&#8217;ve talked about is how you get things done. And the way to get things done is, take a look at the tax code right now. The idea [is that] we have to start rewarding work, not just wealth. I would eliminate the capital gains tax — I would raise the capital gains tax to the highest rate of 39.5%. I would double it because, guess what? Why in God&#8217;s name should someone who&#8217;s clipping coupons in the stock market make, in fact, pay a lower tax rate than someone who in fact, is, like I said, a schoolteacher and a firefighter? It&#8217;s ridiculous, and they pay a lower tax. </blockquote>
Huh? What the [expletive] did he just say? I mean, that&#8217;s their candidate? That&#8217;s their tied-for-the-leading-guy candidate? It’s absurd. He&#8217;s fixing his dentures all the time, it&#8217;s incredible. The guy makes no sense. 
<iframe title="Nuts! | The Andrew Klavan Show Ep. 784" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SrJItpxxT-g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Basically, he says — I think what he said — was he wanted to double the capital gains tax. Remember, the capital gains tax is a double tax. This is money that you already made and already get taxed, and then you take that money and you invest it in somebody else&#8217;s business. What does that do? It creates jobs, it creates wealth, it creates new businesses. It does all that stuff. And so if it works — you risk your money — [and] if it works, you get a profit. And then they tax you again, they already tax[ed] that money. There shouldn&#8217;t be any capital gains tax. It&#8217;s ridiculous.
Whenever they tell you that corporations don&#8217;t get taxed, everybody in the corporation gets taxed, and then they get taxed again for capital gains. 
How does that help the economy? So what are you going to do? They&#8217;re going to tax your investments. You don&#8217;t have to do that, go out and buy a boat. And then he says, well, look at him, he&#8217;s got a yacht, he&#8217;s not contributing anything to society. Well, you would be contributing to society if they hadn&#8217;t taken your money away. So you&#8217;re going to protect it. You&#8217;re going to take it away from them, take it away from these things — the work that it is doing for the country — and use it for yourself so you won&#8217;t get taxed on it. It&#8217;s just dumb, it is absolutely dumb.
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-andrew-klavan-show/id1045171376?mt=2">Listen to full episodes of “The Andrew Klavan Show” on iTunes</a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show">Watch “The Andrew Klavan Show” on-demand!</a>

Joe Biden

KLAVAN: Joe Biden Stumbles Through His Nonsense Tax Plan

Taxes

An embarrassing video supposedly supporting Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) Native American heritage has been scrubbed from the presidential hopeful’s Twitter page. 
A year ago Tuesday, Warren posted <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elizabeth-warren-releases-results-dna-test-just-james-barrett">results</a> of a DNA test that she took in an attempt to shake the damaging “Fauxcahontas” branding routinely echoed by President Donald Trump for her apparently fraudulent claims to having Native American heritage. For decades, Warren clung to her claims to Native American heritage, citing high cheekbones and family recipes and stories passed down over generations.
The DNA test showed that the senator is as little as 1/1,024th Native American, which is less Native American than the average European-American, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/backfire-2nd-correction-made-elizabeth-warren-dna-ryan-saavedra">according</a> to a comprehensive study. In other words, the DNA test proved her critics correct, so much so that Warren had to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-cherokee-dna.html">apologize</a> to the Cherokee Nation for calling herself Native American.
The <a href="https://gop.com/happy-anniversary-fauxcahontas">GOP</a> celebrated the anniversary of Warren’s self-own with a blog post calling the Democrat a “fraud,” as highlighted by <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/elizabeth-warren-scrubs-dna-test-video-from-twitter/">The Washington Free Beacon</a>. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Happy Anniversary, Fauxcahontas! 
A year ago today, in a spectacular failure to placate the criticism that she lied about her heritage, Elizabeth Warren took a DNA test and we learned this gem: She was 1/1024th Native American. <a href="https://t.co/3wb4Fquvsj">https://t.co/3wb4Fquvsj</a>
&mdash; Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1184173527307554822?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Within the blog post, the GOP embedded a video-tweet from Warren bragging about her alleged Native American ancestry that was supposedly supported by her DNA test. 
“My family (including Fox News-watchers) sat together and talked about what they think of [Donald Trump]’s attacks on our heritage. And yes, a famous geneticist analyzed my DNA and concluded that it contains Native American ancestry,” the Democrat captioned the video via Twitter. 
But by Wednesday, Warren had <a href="https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1051783184390664192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">deleted</a> the tweet. 
The Free Beacon obtained the video before the candidate had it deleted (view below). 
In the five-minute video, Warren shows clips of Trump and other Republicans mocking her as the “fake Pocahontas” and “Fauxcahontas” while her family members vouch for her Native American claims. This is before she brags about taking a DNA test and calls a professor of genetics to confirm her Native American ancestry. “The facts suggest you absolutely have a Native American ancestor in your pedigree,” the professor tells a pleased Warren over the phone. 
But while being as little as 1/1,024th Native American cut it for Warren, it didn’t quite do so with the general public. Warren quickly moved into damage control mode for posting the video. 
The GOP <a href="https://gop.com/happy-anniversary-fauxcahontas">blog post</a> highlighted the senator’s past year spent covering her tracks “following her disastrous DNA fiasco”:
<ul>
<li>The Cherokee Nation responded to her DNA test saying it was “<a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fcherokee-nation-responds-to-senator-warren-says-dna-test-useless-to-determine-tribal-citizenship&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers%40gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629050158&amp;sdata=fjW6V3wrLOihqzCxXTzsaTx8vMp6hUefT9IZVn89qAU%3D&amp;reserved=0">useless</a> to determine tribal citizenship.”</li>
<li>She attempt <a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/elizabeth-warren-apologizes-for-calling-herself-native-american/2019/02/05/1627df76-2962-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html?utm_term=.7cc1eead7604&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers@gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629050158&amp;sdata=VLe5svY7sf8Mt2cerhpUmrdHA0hiZ7cJvd2w2UuxOBs=&amp;reserved=0">apologize</a> for the “<a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Felizabeth-warren-again-apologizes-after-release-of-native-american-ancestry-link-11566241904&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers%40gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629060154&amp;sdata=5sEPBici0%2Fb%2Bct6vRme83r6F7bsZMc9eRUEoq4qVMsY%3D&amp;reserved=0">harm</a>” she caused by lying about her heritage.</li>
<li>Contrary to what <a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com%2Fblogs%2Fburns-haberman%2F2012%2F05%2Ffordham-piece-called-warren-harvard-laws-first-woman-of-color-123526&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers%40gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629060154&amp;sdata=ZsxDb0NngEIYU75U6od6SqK1uTisWQj%2BKnqGPBmKeGU%3D&amp;reserved=0">Harvard Law</a> said, Warren <a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Felizabeth-warren-admits-shes-not-a-person-of-color-during-commencement-speech-departs-from-native-american-heritage-claim&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers%40gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629070149&amp;sdata=PiRJlUJRU106BLvTww9bRgtQLAihsZdwI3GSVd2AJYA%3D&amp;reserved=0">admitted</a> she wasn’t a “person of color.</li>
<li>She <a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffacts.elizabethwarren.com%2Fheritage%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers%40gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629080144&amp;sdata=myo%2FFSXsrx7kkFncSdTFikge%2B9fcdb4oUxcyl%2FlWn4M%3D&amp;reserved=0">deleted</a> the “fact squad” section on her “Heritage” from her campaign website.</li>
</ul>
“Bottom line,” the post concluded, “Elizabeth Warren lying about her heritage in order to claim minority status at a critical point in her career is emblematic of the larger problem with her and her candidacy: She is a <a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2019%2F09%2F17%2Felizabeth-warren-accepted-lobbyist-money-when-running-for-senate.html%3F__source%3Dsharebar%257Ctwitter%26par%3Dsharebar&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers%40gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629080144&amp;sdata=EC%2B4URqgNBt5Z1Zf3UFAl%2FckdsExNFmLohKVFMvQRp8%3D&amp;reserved=0">fraud</a> <a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2019%2F10%2F14%2Felizabeth-warren-has-a-history-of-collecting-cash-from-billionaires%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers%40gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629090140&amp;sdata=vH2OFYyZzPrODu0zUV%2BV1SFBcFk8GIhaBgxG1EyablI%3D&amp;reserved=0">through</a> <a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fpeterwallsten%2Fstatus%2F1150821492348862464%3Fs%3D20&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers%40gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629090140&amp;sdata=NBVvqJWoCJOhY9EFHwlwnSXnFyOS8up7fF%2B%2BTwvHKTo%3D&amp;reserved=0">and</a> <a href="https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F09%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Felizabeth-warren-2020.html%3Femc%3Drss%26partner%3Drss&amp;data=02%7C01%7CAAkers%40gop.com%7Cc7b30d3638e64d42213d08d7519c31d3%7C4a082c81950a410d9618462a9c74d6ae%7C1%7C0%7C637067603629100140&amp;sdata=hV0jtHSBfs7bW5vr%2FoBXcB%2BcPlLREHi6jZo9iIFqpp0%3D&amp;reserved=0">through</a>.&#8221;
As reported by The New York Times last year, Cherokee Nation spokeswoman Julie Hubbard confirmed Warren had a “brief and private” phone call apology with the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation Bill John Baker. 
“I understand that she apologized for causing confusion on tribal sovereignty and tribal citizenship and the harm that has resulted,” said Hubbard. “The chief and secretary of state appreciate that she has reaffirmed that she is not a Cherokee Nation citizen or a citizen of any tribal nation.”
As noted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elizabeth-warren-apologizes-cherokee-nation-taking-kassy-dillon">The Daily Wire</a>, Warren’s DNA sparked outrage from the Cherokee Nation. “Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement. “It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven.”
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
WATCH: Warren&#39;s DNA Test/Native American Heritage Video
Her campaign has tried to scrub the video from the internet. <a href="https://t.co/xCah6oLSLT">https://t.co/xCah6oLSLT</a> <a href="https://t.co/GeOXpHzbig">pic.twitter.com/GeOXpHzbig</a>
&mdash; Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) <a href="https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1184522942585167872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Here&#8217;s The Embarrassing DNA Test Video Warren Scrubbed From Twitter

Elizabeth Warren

Native Americans

The office of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) announced early Thursday morning that the congressman has died due to complications concerning &#8220;longstanding health challenges.&#8221;
Cummings, who served as the chairman of the prestigious U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform, represented Maryland&#8217;s 7th Congressional District for more than two decades. He was elected to his seat 12 times by overwhelming majorities, never receiving less than two-thirds of the vote.
&#8220;Congressman Cummings was an honorable man who proudly served his district and the nation with dignity, integrity, compassion and humility,&#8221; Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the congressman&#8217;s widow, wrote in a statement. &#8220;He worked until his last breath because he believed our democracy was the highest and best expression of our collective humanity and that our nation&#8217;s diversity was our promise, not our problem. It&#8217;s been an honor to walk by his side on this incredible journey. I loved him deeply and will miss him dearly.&#8221;
The 68-year-old congressman had recently undergone an undisclosed medical procedure but had not returned to Congress following the recess as anticipated.
According to <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-cummings-medical-20191016-hpfkqhuhovdslgjwmn6syyltiq-story.html">The Baltimore Sun</a>, Cummings skipped more roll call votes earlier this week, when recess concluded, and he has not participated in a roll call vote since September 11. Neither his office, nor Democratic leadership, would comment on his condition or expected return.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Breaking?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Breaking</a> from <a href="https://twitter.com/RepCummings?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepCummings</a> his office says he has passed away <a href="https://twitter.com/wbalradio?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@wbalradio</a> <a href="https://t.co/CHRRR6QNo6">pic.twitter.com/CHRRR6QNo6</a>
&mdash; Anne Kramer WBAL (@AnneKramerWBAL) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnneKramerWBAL/status/1184752711394299904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Cummings was born in 1951 to a family of sharecroppers and Baptist preachers. He attended Baltimore City College high school, followed by Howard University, where he was elected student government president.
The Maryland lawmaker notably was inspired to become an attorney after watching the television series &#8220;Perry Mason&#8221; as a child.
&#8220;Many young men in my neighborhood were going to reform school,&#8221; he told the East Texas Review. &#8220;Though I didn&#8217;t completely know what reform school was, I knew that Perry Mason won a lot of cases. I also thought that these young men probably needed lawyers.&#8221;
Cummings received his J.D. from University of Maryland School of Law in 1976 and was admitted to the Maryland Bar later that year. He subsequently practiced law for nearly two decades before he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
During the same time period, Cummings served in the Maryland General Assembly. While in the state legislature, he was not only Chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, but also served as the Speaker Pro Tempore — he was the first African American to serve in that role in Maryland&#8217;s history. Cummings has since served on a number of state and local boards in and around Baltimore.
Cummings won his U.S. Congressional seat in 1996, but gained national attention in 2015 after he was selected to serve on the House&#8217;s Select Committee on Benghazi. The committee was tasked with investigating the events that occurred in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. As the committee&#8217;s ranking member, Cummings became then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton&#8217;s chief defender.
He was &#8220;the quintessential speaking-truth-to-power representative,&#8221; Herbert Smith, a political science professor at McDaniel College told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/17/elijah-cummings-dies-baltimore/">The Washington Post</a>. &#8220;Cummings has never shied from a very forceful give-and-take.&#8221;
&#8220;Our heartfelt prayers go out to the family of Rep. Cummings, who generously shared his God-given gifts and talents [with] the people of his beloved city, state and nation for so many years,&#8221; the Baltimore Archdiocese said in a statement. &#8220;We give thanks for his dedicated service and pray for the repose of his soul.&#8221;
Cummings passed away at Johns Hopkins Hospital in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler Holds Press Conference As Lawsuits Against Barr, McGahn Authorized

Congressman Elijah Cummings Passes Away

Elijah Cummings

On Tuesday evening, Pat Sajak, the witty host of “Wheel of Fortune,” issued two tweets that hilariously won Twitter and destroyed the Democratic presidential debate. With one minute left before the debate started, Sajak tweeted, “I’m all goose-bumpy waiting for it to start.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I’m all goose-bumpy waiting for it to start.
&mdash; Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/1184257628660219906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
Three minutes later and two minutes into the debate, Sajak followed with, &#8220;I&#8217;m done.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I’m done.
&mdash; Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/1184258344187580416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In late June, Sajak <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pat-sajak-strikes-again-demolishes-dem-debate-one-hank-berrien">lanced the Democratic presidential debate </a>with this deathless tweet, writing, “This could be worse. It could be a dinner party and I could be there.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This could be worse. It could be a dinner party and I could be there.
&mdash; Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/1144422946011791360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Sajak has famously tweeted such pointed and brief remarks before. After the horrific Las Vegas massacre in October 2017, when celebrities chimed in with their uninformed opinions, Sajak tweeted, “OK, let me explain this again: We&#8217;re celebs. We&#8217;re wiser &amp; more empathetic than you. We are famous. Please take our opinions more seriously.” Sajak&#8217;s biting wit did not spare the celebrity Left, as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/21921/pat-sajak-takes-out-kimmel-and-other-leftist-hank-berrien">The Daily Wire </a>noted at the time:
<blockquote>This is not first time Sajak, a political conservative, has lanced the celebrity bubble of leftism that pervades Hollywood; his resume should have been a warning to leftists that his wit would target them. Sajak is an external director for the conservative publishing house Eagle Publishing, serves on the Board of Trustees at Hillsdale College and has served on the Board of Directors for the Claremont Institute.</blockquote>
Here are some other examples of Sajak pointedly targeting the Left:
<blockquote>Looking forward to next awards show/lecture.
— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/818616227727900672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2017</a>
Nobody abhors violence more than Hollywood, and nobody does more to glorify it.
— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/819370450581069824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2017</a>
I wonder if the celebrities who moved out of the country will return for the demonstrations?
— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/821726393192976385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2017</a>
Unhappy about results of last week&#8217;s People&#8217;s Choice Awards. Thinking of breaking Starbucks windows &amp; trashing limos.
— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/822902011553337347?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2017</a>
Changing the world one screamed obscenity at a time.
— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/823552255148380161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2017</a>
&#8220;Alexa, turn on CNN. I want to hear the news.&#8221; &#8220;You&#8217;ll have to pick one or the other.&#8221;
— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/883151772663021569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2017</a>
Does anyone have thinner skins than the &#8220;tough&#8221; news media?
— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/819992846665220096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 13, 2017</a>
At the end of 2018, Sajak <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39795/pat-sajak-ends-entertaining-year-online-renaming-james-barrett">mocked CNN</a>, tweeting, “Easy fix for CNN: change name to Current Narrative Network. My work here is done.”
Easy fix for CNN: change name to Current Narrative Network. My work here is done.
— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) <a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/1079435032199131137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2018</a></blockquote>
As The Daily Wire reported in June, Sajak’s view of the June debate was not unique. Despite the fact that the second night of the Democratic presidential debates outpaced the first &#8212; drawing 15.26 million viewers across the three networks, according to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/democratic-debate-part-2-rises-tv-ratings-thursday-june-27-2019-1221677">The Hollywood Reporter</a> &#8212; the debate still slightly trailed the first 2012 Democratic presidential debate, which drew 15.46 million viewers, and was left in the dust by the first GOP presidential debate in 2012, which attracted a whopping 24 million viewers.
The latest Democratic presidential debate fared even worse, as <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/cnn-debate-ratings-fall-fourth-democratic-face-1248171">The Hollywood Reporter</a> noted:
<blockquote>CNN drew another sizable audience for the fourth Democratic presidential debate — but not as big as the news network&#8217;s previous debate telecast. Tuesday&#8217;s debate averaged 8.34 million TV viewers, below CNN&#8217;s last debate coverage on July 30-31 and the smallest audience of the four Democratic debates thus far. Live streams of the coverage on digital properties for CNN and co-sponsor The New York Times averaged an additional 449,000.</blockquote>
&nbsp;

The Paley Center For Media Presents: Wheel Of Fortune: 35 Years As America&#8217;s Game

Pat Sajak Offers Two Tweets Hilariously Summing Up Dem Presidential Debate

Pat Sajak

&#8220;I would eliminate the capital gains tax. I would raise the capital gains tax to the highest rate of 39.5%.&#8221;
That was Joe Biden during Tuesday night&#8217;s Democratic Party presidential primary debate.
The 76-year-old former vice president stumbled and bumbled his way through the two-hour debate, spewing a string of verbal gaffes not seen since, well, the last time he opened his mouth.
At one point, as he was trying to attack rivals Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Biden nearly said he ended the Roe v. Wade decision that declared abortion is a constitutionally protected right.
&#8220;Senator Warren said we can&#8217;t be running any vague campaigns. We&#8217;ve got to level with people. We&#8217;ve got to level with people and tell them exactly what we&#8217;re going to do, how we&#8217;re going to get it done, and if you can get it done. I&#8217;m going to say something that is probably going to offend some people here, but I&#8217;m the only one on this stage that has gotten anything really big done — from the Violence Against Women Act to making sure that we pass[ed] the Affordable Care Act to being in a position where we, in fact, took almost a[n] &#8230; Act that kept us from going into a depression, making us — putting us in a position where I was able to end Roe — excuse me,&#8221; he said, breaking off quickly.
Biden, who was once chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also confused Afghanistan and Iraq as he talked about President Trump&#8217;s foreign policy.
&#8220;Think what&#8217;s happened. The fact of the matter is you have Russia influencing and trying to break up NATO. What does the president do? He says I believe Vladimir Putin. I believe Vladimir Putin, I don&#8217;t believe our intelligence community,&#8221; Biden said. &#8220;What is happening in Iraq — excuse me, in Afghanistan — as well as all the way over to Syria, we have ISIS that&#8217;s going to come here. They are going to, in fact, damage the United States of America. That&#8217;s why we got involved in the first place.&#8221;
Biden got even more befuddled when he tried to explain his own tax plan.
&#8220;I would eliminate the capital gains tax — I would raise the capital gains tax to the highest rate, of 39.5%. I would double it, because guess what? Why in God&#8217;s name should someone who&#8217;s clipping coupons in the stock market make — in fact, pay a lower tax rate than someone who, in fact, is — like I said — the — a schoolteacher and a firefighter? It&#8217;s ridiculous. And they pay a lower tax,&#8221; he said about Sanders&#8217; and Warren&#8217;s plans to raise taxes on top U.S. earners.
Clipping coupons in the stock market? Um, OK.
Biden&#8217;s gaffes have become a thing of legend. At the last Democratic Party debate, Biden at one point blurted out, &#8220;go to Joe 3-0-3-3-0.&#8221; Apparently, he meant to tell viewers they should text &#8220;Joe&#8221; to 30330, but he looked out of it with the blunder. There are plenty more: In New Hampshire, he said he loved it there … in Vermont. Then he said, &#8220;Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.&#8221;

Biden

CURL: THE GAFFE KING: Biden Stumbles, Bumbles His Way Through Debate

Former Rep. Beto O&#8217;Rourke (D-TX) explained on Wednesday that while handguns are responsible for the overwhelming majority of firearms deaths, he still only wants to take away so-called &#8220;assault weapons&#8221; from American citizens.
&#8220;First of all, there&#8217;s a significant difference between a handgun and an AR-15,&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke told MSNBC&#8217;s Willie Geist when confronted with the data. &#8220;If you talk to or listen to trauma surgeons, as I have, and they describe the wounds from those weapons of war, they expel all their kinetic energy inside of you. They just destroy your organs, cause you to bleed to death, very different from what a handgun will do. And there&#8217;s a legitimate use for a handgun, to protect yourself in your home.&#8221;
The former Texas congressman has long advocated for strict gun control measures, such as requiring universal background checks, opposing concealed carry reciprocity, and banning &#8220;assault weapons.&#8221; However, his anti-gun stance has become even more radical since he began seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
After facing mounting pressure to drop out of the presidential race, O&#8217;Rourke instead re-launched his campaign in August with a primary focus on his anti-gun platform. Days later, he called for the federal government to seize millions of firearms from law-abiding American citizens, but he has yet to clarify precisely which firearms should be confiscated.
Geist questioned O&#8217;Rourke on why he is not calling for law enforcement to go door-to-door in high crime areas like Chicago, in order to help prevent gun-related violence.
&#8220;The answer to that challenge is making sure that we have true universal background checks, close all of the loopholes, and in the Chicago example, and I&#8217;ve talked to people in Chicago about this, you cannot have selective enforcement of those background checks because while you may have them in Chicago, if you don&#8217;t have them in Indiana or in bordering states, people are going to buy guns in those places and bring them into Chicago,&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke replied. &#8220;We need a national system of universal background checks and it must be complemented with red-flag laws so that if someone is displaying a tendency towards harming themselves, in a country that loses 22,000 people to gun suicides, or harming somebody else, then we take that weapon from them through due process before it is too late.&#8221;
After Geist pressed O&#8217;Rourke further on why, if 70% of gun violence is coming from handguns, not just &#8220;go all the way&#8221; and confiscate those as well.
&#8220;Because I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s the right thing to do,&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke answered. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s constitutional.&#8221;
He subsequently cited Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia&#8217;s landmark 2008 opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual&#8217;s right to possess a firearm, unconnected with service in a militia. While O&#8217;Rourke stated that Scalia noted some limits to the Second Amendment, the Democratic contender refrained from acknowledging what they are.
&#8220;When the Second Amendment was ratified and adopted, it took you three minutes to reload your musket. I don&#8217;t know that the Founding Fathers could have envisioned the kind of carnage that could be produced with one of these weapons,&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke said. &#8220;No civilian should own them. And I hope you all acknowledge this, every candidate on that stage is for an assault weapons ban.&#8221;
&#8220;So, if the logic is that those weapons are too dangerous to sell and then you knowledge that there are 16 million of them out there, you have to do something about the number of weapons that are out there,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;And my plan is the clearest, it is the boldest, and to your point, it is politically difficult, it may not poll well, it may not be politically convenient, but it&#8217;s important if we&#8217;re going to save the lives of our fellow Americans.&#8221;

Democratic Presidential Candidates Participate In Fourth Debate In Ohio

Beto O&#8217;Rourke Tries To Explain Why He Isn&#8217;t Calling For The Government To Confiscate Handguns

Gun Buybacks

Gun Laws

Former Vice President Joe Biden&#8217;s once-solid double-digit lead over the rest of the field of 2020 Democratic Party presidential nominees catastrophically shrunk, in recent weeks, before slightly expanding again one the past week. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">Biden currently stands 6.0% above second-place Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)</a> in the average of recent national polling. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) round out the top five in most recent national polling. Increasingly, the field appears to be shaping up as a three-horse race among Biden, Warren, and Sanders. But Sanders is <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/30/bernie-sanders-2020-election-decline-228755">poised to be the odd man out</a> of the troika, due to a combination of health problems and the fact his socialist  political platform is no longer unique.
Biden&#8217;s once-formidable lead has dramatically narrowed since its high watermark in May, as the senior statesman frequently commits gaffes on the campaign trail and oftentimes comes across as simply being too old to assume the mantle of commander-in-chief. It remains to be seen just how much of Biden&#8217;s continued fall can also be attributed to fallout from the recent Ukraine phone call national scandal and impeachment imbroglio. Warren has been surging awhile now, although her national polling has taken a bit of a drop over the past week. Warren and Sanders seem to be competing for a very similar voting demographic, and it is interesting to ponder the possibility of how one candidate would likely be substantially elevated were the other to drop out and endorse the other. Some polling data suggests that Sanders hypothetically dropping out would help Warren more than it would help Biden.
Electoral prediction market website <a href="https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3633/Who-will-win-the-2020-Democratic-presidential-nomination">PredictIt</a> also pegs Warren as the overwhelming favorite to win the presidential nomination over Biden — with Sanders, Buttigieg, and political novice Andrew Yang following next. It is likely that many of these bettors are skittish about Biden&#8217;s age and perceived substantive centrism — with the latter especially worrisome among a Democratic Party base that is increasingly brazen and unabashed in its promotion of ardent, full-spectrum leftism.
The <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">RealClearPolitics</a> polling average for 10/06/19 – 10/15/19 shows Biden with an average national polling lead of 6.0%.
A recent <a href="https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/kvoamfqbbo/econTabReport.pdf">Economist/YouGov</a> national poll conducted from 10/13/19 – 10/15/19 showed Warren, at 29%, with a four-point lead over Biden. Biden was up 12 points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3644">Quinnipiac</a> national poll conducted from 10/11/19 – 10/13/19 showed Warren, at 30%, with a three-point lead over Biden. Biden was up 16 points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2020-democratic-primary-2/">Politico/Morning Consult</a> national poll conducted from 10/07/19 – 10/12/19 showed Biden, at 32%, with an 11-point lead over Warren. Warren was up two points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/429686638/Fox-News-Poll-October-6-8-2019">Fox News</a> national poll conducted from 10/06/19 – 10/08/19 showed Biden, at 32%, with a 10-point lead over Warren. Warren was up five points on Sanders and no one else polled in double digits.
A recent <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/465694-democratic-support-for-warren-climbs-to-record-high-in-new-poll">The Hill/HarrisX</a> national poll conducted from 10/06/19 – 10/07/19 showed Biden, at 31%, with a 14-point lead over Sanders. Sanders was up two points on Warren and no one else polled in double digits.
Will Warren and Biden remain the two frontrunners? Will Buttigieg or Yang catch more traction? Stay tuned.
Latest Aggregate Early State-By-State Polling Data
Iowa: Warren 22.7%, Biden 19.3%, Sanders 16.0%, Buttigieg 12.0%, Harris 5.3%
New Hampshire: Warren 27.3%, Biden 24.0%, Sanders 16.7%, Buttigieg 8.7%, Harris 4.7%
Nevada: Biden 22.5%, Warren 18.5%, Sanders 18.0%, Harris 4.5%, Buttigieg 3.5%
South Carolina: Biden 38.8%, Warren 14.0%, Sanders 11.0%, Harris 5.5%, Buttigieg 2.5%
This article has been updated to reflect the most recent survey data.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate In Detroit Over Two Nights

Who Will Win The Democratic Primary? The Latest On 2020 Presidential Primary Polling.

Bernie Sanders

Pete Buttigieg

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called for a probe into four Democratic Senators on Sunday over a letter that they sent to Ukraine in 2018 that threatened to withhold aid from the country if it did not continue to investigate President Donald Trump.
When asked by left-wing &#8220;Meet The Press&#8221; host Chuck Todd about whether he was concerned over Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani&#8217;s interaction with Ukraine, Paul responded, &#8220;If anything is consistent here it&#8217;s that both parties have tried to involve themselves in Ukraine. So for example, four senators, Democrats, wrote a letter to the Ukrainian government and said, &#8216;If you don&#8217;t keep investigating Trump we may reconsider our bipartisan support for your aid.&#8217; Both parties seem to be doing this.&#8221;
Speaking on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden&#8217;s son, Hunter Biden, Paul said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t really know enough about what he&#8217;s doing. I knew he traveled over there to try to seek information on Hunter Biden&#8217;s corruption. I think a lot of Americans see the $50,000 a month Hunter Biden was making and it doesn&#8217;t pass the smell test. I think most people do think there was some corruption involved with Hunter Biden. And I hope we do get to the bottom of it.&#8221;
&#8220;If you&#8217;re going to condemn Trump you need to condemn the Democrat senators. It shouldn&#8217;t be just one-sided,&#8221; Paul concluded. &#8220;Everybody&#8217;s going after President Trump. Someone needs to actually, in an objective way, evaluate a letter from four Democrats that said to Ukraine, &#8216;If you don&#8217;t keep investigating Trump we will reconsider our bipartisan support for aid.&#8217; That&#8217;s a threat. And that&#8217;s the same kind of stuff they&#8217;re accusing Trump of. But nobody&#8217;s talking about that the Democrats are doing exactly the same thing.&#8221;
Paul&#8217;s remarks about the four Democratic Senators who wrote a threatening letter to Ukraine comes from an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/24/democrats-investigation-might-do-more-hurt-biden-than-trump/">article</a> in The Washington Post which noted that three Democratic Senators – Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) – &#8220;wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe.&#8221;
&#8220;In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake,&#8221; the article continued. &#8220;Describing themselves as &#8216;strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine,&#8217; the Democratic senators declared, &#8216;We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump,&#8217; before demanding Lutsenko &#8216;reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.'&#8221;
The fourth Democratic senator to whom Paul was referring was Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy.
In September, The Hill&#8217;s John Solomon <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/462658-lets-get-real-democrats-were-first-to-enlist-ukraine-in-us-elections">wrote</a> that Murphy &#8220;delivered a pointed message to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky&#8221; that &#8220;Ukraine currently enjoyed bipartisan support for its U.S. aid but that could be jeopardized if the new president acquiesced to requests by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate past corruption allegations involving Americans, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.&#8221;
&#8220;The implied message did not require an interpreter for Zelensky to understand: Investigate the Ukraine dealings of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and you jeopardize Democrats&#8217; support for future U.S. aid to Kiev,&#8221; Solomon concluded.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Rand Paul: “Four senators, Democrats, wrote a letter to the Ukrainian government and said, ‘If you don&#8217;t keep investigating Trump we may reconsider our bipartisan support for your aid &#8230; Someone needs to actually, in an objective way, evaluate [the] letter &#8230; That&#8217;s a threat’” <a href="https://t.co/59kyjIN46N">pic.twitter.com/59kyjIN46N</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1183523297213870080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2019</a></blockquote>

Rand Paul

Rand Paul Calls For Probe Into 4 Democratic Senators Over Threats To Ukraine

Ukraine

Last night, a number of presidential candidates took part in a lengthy CNN town hall centered around LGBT issues. It should have been a safe event for the Democrats. Had they spent the evening shouting vapid slogans like &#8220;love is love&#8221; and &#8220;equality for all,&#8221; they would have come out looking enlightened in some people&#8217;s eyes and basically harmless to almost everyone else. Gay rights — if by that, we mean the right to get married — is (like it or not) now a politically winning issue for the Democratic Party. Polling <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fullpage/poll-shows-growing-support-gay-marriage-18757411">consistently shows</a> that an increasing majority of Americans have a generally positive attitude towards gay marriage and homosexuality. Politically speaking, the Democrats are in good shape when they stay in that lane. But last night, they veered far, far outside of it — eventually careening off the highway, over the guardrail, down an embankment, and into the river below.
Even on the issue of gay marriage, the Democrats found a way to turn a political winner into a political loser. Beto O&#8217;Rourke advocated using the IRS to <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1182484830044467200">punish</a> schools and churches that maintain their belief in one-man/one-woman marriage. The carefully curated crowd of radical leftists responded to the illegal and bigoted proposal with uproarious applause. And of course the moderators, who displayed staggering levels of cowardice throughout the evening, did not follow up by asking the congressman whether this initiative would extend to mosques. Most Americans are on board with gay marriage, but they&#8217;re also <a href="https://www.barna.com/research/religious-freedom-clergy/">on board</a> with religious liberty. &#8220;Go after the churches&#8221; may be a rallying cry that earns you applause in a CNN town hall, but it won&#8217;t win you votes in Ohio.
The real trouble came when the discussion turned to transgenderism. All of the candidates tried their best to pretend that they actually believe in the radical Left&#8217;s various superstitions regarding sex and gender. I&#8217;m not sure if their performances were convincing to leftists, but from the perspective of sane and normal people, it teetered between awkward and downright horrifying. On the awkward side of things, Kamala Harris opened up by giving her<a href="https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1182470527044243456"> preferred pronouns.</a> This is a sacred ritual in gender studies lecture halls across the country, but everyone else just finds it ridiculous. Even Chris Cuomo couldn&#8217;t help but crack a joke. &#8220;Fredo&#8221; promptly apologized, but there&#8217;s a reason why he instinctively responded the way he did. Introducing yourself with your pronouns is objectively bizarre. Only those who have been thoroughly brainwashed ahead of time can manage to keep a straight face when confronted by such silliness.
On the horrifying end of the spectrum, Elizabeth Warren <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1182471208270352384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1182471208270352384&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fwarren-inmates-are-entitled-to-taxpayer-funded-transgender-surgery">came out</a> in favor of forcing taxpayers to fund genital mutilation procedures for incarcerated transgenders. This is a reversal of her position only a few years ago. Indeed, every single one of these candidates have undergone a sudden and dramatic transformation on the issue of sex and gender. They all spent almost their entire adult lives believing that sex is an immutable and biological characteristic. If you could go back in time to the year 2004 and ask any of them — Warren, Sanders, O&#8217;Rourke, whomever — whether men have penises, they would look at you with stunned bemusement and then say something like, &#8220;What? Yes, obviously.&#8221; They probably would have given you that answer in 2008, 2012, and maybe even 2016. It&#8217;s only in the last couple of years that all prominent Democrats in the country have decided that men can menstruate and woman can produce sperm.
This all raises a question: Why did they change their minds on this? What accounts for the weirdest and most dramatic flip flop in the history of politics? Well, I know the answer. So do you. But they won&#8217;t give that answer. I&#8217;d be curious to hear what answer they do give. And if we had an actual news media interested in holding liberal politicians accountable, we would all get a chance to hear it. In any case, however, they came to the conclusion that biological sex doesn&#8217;t exist — whether due to collective head injury, spiritual epiphany, vision, drug-induced hallucination, or cynical political calculation. It is doubtful that a majority of voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida agree with their current position.
<a href="https://twitter.com/HRC/status/1182465629477097473">Most horrifying of all</a> was the nine-year-old &#8220;transgender&#8221; child whose abuse and exploitation was heartily endorsed by Elizabeth Warren and the audience. The poor child — a girl who thinks she&#8217;s a boy — read a question that had clearly been prepared by her mother, who was standing beside her beaming with pride.  That mother apparently works with the militant leftist Human Rights Campaign. Funny, isn&#8217;t it? Radical leftist parents who subscribe to progressive gender theory are so often the ones who end up with &#8220;transgender&#8221; children. It&#8217;s almost like &#8220;transgenderism&#8221; in children is usually a product of conditioning. Parents intentionally foster gender confusion so that they can parade their kids around as fashion statements. &#8220;Hey, look at me! My kid is trans! Beat that, you woke posers!&#8221; It&#8217;s disgusting, evil, and tragic. And I am confident that most sane people recognize it as such. But the Democratic Party has no use for sane people, and is no longer trying to represent them.

Rainbow Pride Flag

WALSH: Applauding Child Abuse, Denying Science — The Democrats Put Their Insanity And Cruelty On Display Last Night

Homosexuality

LGBT

Transgender

At yet another CNN town hall event for Democratic Party presidential hopefuls, former Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-TX) once again peeled back the Democratic National Committee&#8217;s carefully crafted veneer of political centrism to reveal what the Left really thinks about bedrock American principles.
For weeks, O’Rourke has been touring the country to tell us all about his plan to take away America’s guns. Rather than embrace the importance of this Second Amendment freedom, O’Rourke continually doubles down, often invoking words you can’t say on television to emphasize his seriousness that, under his hypothetical administration, the American government will forcefully disarm its own citizens.
This has pushed some on the Left to turn their metaphorical guns on O’Rourke. These tepid rebukes of the erstwhile wunderkind who nearly toppled Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) sound more like, “Hey, don’t tell everyone what we really think.”
Having staked his position on the Second Amendment Thursday night, Robert Francis O’Rourke turned his attention to the First Amendment. Sagging in the polls, O’Rourke stood opposite CNN’s Don Lemon as Lemon read from one of O’Rourke’s plans. All the longshot presidential hopefuls have a plan, it seems. And every plan is fine-tuned for a niche audience. This was a plan for the LGBTQ+ community.
Lemon noted that O’Rourke’s plan praised freedom of religion as a fundamental right, but one that “should not be used to discriminate.” With that setup, Lemon asked, “Do you think religious institutions, like colleges, churches, charities, should they lose their tax exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?”
At this point, everyone in the audience knew what O’Rourke’s answer really was. But they also knew what he had to say if he was going to turn the corner after the primary to gain traction in a general election. True to himself, O’Rourke wasted no time in casting off the shackles of centrism. He told the world what the Left really believes.
“Yes,” O’Rourke says, “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for any one or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.”
Perhaps O’Rourke came to that conclusion after a discussion with someone in a Buc-ee&#8217;s bathroom. Perhaps it is what he has always thought. Perhaps he tested the answer in focus groups and has plans to double down on his answer in the coming days on the campaign trail.
Whatever the reason, O’Rourke’s answer is revealing for its honesty. While the Obama administration prosecuted nuns over birth control, it at least spoke in platitudes about “freedom to worship.” Celibate nuns may have to pay for birth control, but at least they are afforded a modicum of freedom to practice the worshipful elements of their religion.
Not so for O’Rourke. If a religious entity — religious colleges, charities motivated by religion, and churches adhering to two millennia of doctrine — disagrees with O’Rourke, it forfeits its tax exemption.
That’s a far cry from former Justice Anthony Kennedy’s promise in Obergefell v. Hodges, which emphasized “that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost sincere conviction” their religious beliefs regarding human sexuality. Indeed, Kennedy promised that “[t]he First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.”
Yet under an O’Rourke administration, Kennedy’s promise is only fulfilled when organized religion pays its own freight. Thus, Catholic hospitals, Muslim charities, evangelical soup kitchens, and Orthodox Jewish synagogues might manage to continue their good deeds, but only at a taxable rate. They must hope that their former donors are motivated more by the mission than by the tax incentives that have fueled the billions of dollars of charity that Americans have spread around the globe through religious organizations — charity that has relieved the American government from having to address it on its own.
O’Rourke’s plan has the high hurdle of a body of case law that makes it illegal for the government to deprive citizens of a protected right based upon the viewpoint of the citizen — but that’s not his point. O&#8217;Rourke knows that. Everyone knows that. Just like everyone knows O’Rourke has no legitimate path to presidential victory.
Rather, O’Rourke’s purpose is to expand the borders of the increasingly far-left Democratic Party. If a “churches lose their tax exemption” O’Rourke plan is too much. Then Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) “use [of] the Department of Justice to go after schools” plan is made more palatable and a Warren “pass the Equality Act” plan is practically mainstream. And so the entire political machine lurches just a little further to the left — comfortably on the road to total government control.
O’Rourke will not win the presidency. But he is not supposed to. Laugh, if you must, about his trademark flapping arms and insatiable desire to address crowds while standing on tabletops, but take with deadly seriousness his ability to say what his party is increasingly thinking.
&nbsp;
Jeremy Dys (<a href="https://twitter.com/jeremydys">@JeremyDys</a>) is Special Counsel for Litigation and Communications for First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all Americans. Read more at <a href="https://firstliberty.org">FirstLiberty.org</a>.

Beto O&#8217;Rourke CNN town hall

DYS: Beto O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s &#8216;Liberty&#8217; Is No Liberty At All

Constitution

Don Lemon

First Amendment

Gun Control

On this week’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show: Sunday Special,” The Daily Wire&#8217;s editor-in-chief talks with Meghan McCain about some of the prominent Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Joe Biden, Beto O’Rourke, and Pete Buttigieg. Video and partial transcript below: 
SHAPIRO: When I&#8217;m looking at the radical Democrats, I don&#8217;t feel like I have tons of choice. And I wonder what happened to the Democratic Party, and who is responsible for this?
MCCAIN: It’s like, did Trump do it? Did Trump create this sort of Ying to the Yang in it? I don&#8217;t really know how it got to this place. Did Bernie just unleash this dragon that took hold, that has taken over in so many spaces? I don&#8217;t know the answer, but I do think that&#8217;s the future, and I think it&#8217;s very scary. 
SHAPIRO: Yeah, I mean you&#8217;ve talked about this on the show and gotten just shellacked for it. But when you talk about the intersectionalism of the Democratic Party, it is pretty frightening and the entire Left has now bought into this — nah, I shouldn’t say the entire Left — a large segment [of] the Left has bought into this, including virtue-signaling about intersectionality in bizarre and strange ways. 
It&#8217;s one of the reasons why — you know, to go back to Biden for a moment — when I look at Biden, and Biden makes a speech in which he talks about the original vision of the country and was trying to fulfill that, I think that&#8217;s kind of in line with, just kind of traditional American politics. Then you get Beto onstage, talking about how America is founded on slavery and rooted in slavery, and how we have to all acknowledge that every inequality in American life is rooted in slavery. And I think to myself, I don&#8217;t know what happened to these people. I mean, I really don&#8217;t. 
MCCAIN: Well, Biden also says not every Republican is a bad person, [and] I know plenty of good Republican friends. He&#8217;s just been taking so much heat, for even silly statements like that. I don&#8217;t understand why that&#8217;s offensive to people. 
Mayor Pete has really disappointed me. When he first came on “The View,” I was like, this is a guy from the Midwest who really gets America, who really got like the middle of the country, could probably win over all these Rust Belt voters that Hillary ended up losing. And then for me, his take on abortion is so extreme and so out of the realm of where I think most Americans — even if you’re pro-choice — are. [He] gave an interview where he was talking about his interpretation of the Bible maybe could be, [life] doesn&#8217;t begin until the baby is born. I&#8217;m paraphrasing what he said, did you see that interview? And I don&#8217;t know where that&#8217;s coming from?
SHAPIRO: I mean, not the Bible. As it turns out, I&#8217;m very, very well-versed in the Bible, like in the original Hebrew. And no.  
MCCAIN: But it’s just a bizarre statement. Who are you winning over with that? Because you already have so many supporters on the Left. You need to win over me, right? And that makes me run screaming in the other direction. 
SHAPIRO: I don&#8217;t know what his pitch is. I mean, originally, when he emerged on the stage, [I thought] this guy&#8217;s interesting. He seems like he treats people like human beings. As soon as he said, I&#8217;m willing to eat at Chick-fil-A, they&#8217;ve got a chicken — I was like, oh a rational, sane human being. And, so what [that] he&#8217;s gay. Who cares? 
MCCAIN: He was very warm and likable, and when he first came on I was like, oh my God like, what a great — what a refreshing Democrat.
SHAPIRO: I mean, I said at the very beginning, I thought that he was really fascinating. I said it on air. And then he got into this whole Pastor Pete routine, and he&#8217;s quoting the Bible more frequently than I do, and I don&#8217;t do it all that often. But I just kept thinking to myself, Why are we getting Bible class with with Pete Buttigieg? Why? Does he think that it&#8217;s a smart strategy to tell every Christian in the country that they&#8217;re misinterpreting the Bible, and that abortion on-demand is biblically mandated? I don&#8217;t see the strategy there, it&#8217;s bizarre.
MCCAIN: And I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s just sort of the temptation to go very progressive — because that&#8217;s what you think you need to [do to] win — during primaries. Maybe he just wasn&#8217;t thinking about the general? But he&#8217;s the one in particular, not to spend so much time trashing him, because I still think he&#8217;s probably a good and decent person. But I think his politics are much different than I had originally [thought].
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/sunday-special">Watch “The Ben Shapiro Show: Sunday Special” on-demand!</a>

Sunday Special: Meghan McCain

Meghan McCain To Shapiro: Future Of The Democratic Party ‘Very Scary’

Ben Shapiro

Meghan McCain

Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) criticized the Democratic Party on Friday for moving so far to the political Left that they may not be able to win back a large swath of voters.
&#8220;The Democratic Party has been completely subsumed by this &#8216;What&#8217;s the Matter With Kansas,’ mantra,&#8221; Rose told <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/how-trump-country-democrat-rep-max-rose-got-to-impeachment.html">New York Magazine&#8217;s</a> &#8220;Intelligencer.&#8221; &#8220;Oooh, I don&#8217;t understand why they don&#8217;t vote for us? Why can&#8217;t they be smarter? Don&#8217;t they know all we are doing for them? It&#8217;s the most offensive, patronizing thing imaginable. And it&#8217;s taken over the party. A better question would be: Why don&#8217;t they trust us?&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think losing is cool,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I want the Democratic Party to be the party of Kyrsten Sinema and not the party of Beto O&#8217;Rourke.&#8221;
Sinema notably flipped Arizona&#8217;s longstanding red Senate seat blue after winning her election in 2018. Since she was sworn into office, she has legislated as a moderate Democrat rather than pivoting to the Left in order to satisfy the party&#8217;s base. Accordingly, the freshman senator <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/">has voted with</a> President Donald Trump and the Republican Party roughly half of the time.
O&#8217;Rourke, however, has consistently moved so far to the political left that his demands have become divisive even among members of his own party. The former Texas congressman unsuccessfully ran to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), despite record-breaking fundraising during a blue-wave election cycle.
During his Senate race, O&#8217;Rourke refused to clarify where he stood on the migrant caravan that was heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border despite immigration and border security overwhelmingly being the top issues for voters in Texas. He has since come out in favor of giving citizenship to nearly 20 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States and opposes incarcerating individuals who illegally cross over the border. His stance is not only unpopular with Texans, but with the majority of Americans.
O&#8217;Rourke has also received widespread backlash for demanding that the federal government seize millions of firearms from law-abiding American citizens. While some of his presidential opponents backed his calls, Democratic leadership, as well as many rank-and-file Democrats swiftly distanced themselves.
&#8220;Losing is not as cool as [O&#8217;Rourke] thinks it is,&#8221; Rose said. &#8220;When you win you get to help people, and when you lose you get to be a social-media rock star. So I don&#8217;t think Beto is cool, and I don&#8217;t think losing is cool.&#8221;
&#8220;If we don&#8217;t win, we can&#8217;t do a f***ing thing for anybody in a union, anybody in public housing, anybody that can&#8217;t reunite with their family because of a f***ing racist Muslim ban,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;This is where it begins and ends for me, so f***ing figure it out.&#8221;
Rose edged out Republican incumbent Rep. Dan Donovan by just over five points in New York&#8217;s 11th Congressional District in 2018. He is considered one of the more centrist Democrats in the House of Representatives, but faces an uphill battle retaining his seat in the upcoming election cycle.
Rather than promulgating progressive issues, Rose told New York Magazine that he wants to focus on what he refers to as &#8220;centrist populism,&#8221; which includes increasing union membership, massive investments in infrastructure and energy, and eradicating the opioid crisis. He further noted that he &#8220;believes there is no problem that can’t be solved by a public-private partnership.&#8221;
&#8220;I did not go to Washington to become everybody’s buddy,&#8221; Rose says. &#8220;I am not down there to be a part of the system. What I am down there for is to wage war on the entire political class.&#8221;

Beto O&#8217;Rourke Begins First Campaign Swing In Iowa As A Presidential Candidate

Democratic Lawmaker Slams Beto O&#8217;Rourke And The Democratic Party: &#8216;I Don&#8217;t Think Losing Is Cool&#8217;

As The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/464961-planned-parenthood-announces-45-million-campaign-to-defeat-trump-flip">notes</a>, Planned Parenthood is planning to make a major investment in the 2020 election. The abortion conglomerate&#8217;s super PAC announced that it would be spending upwards of $45 million to unseat Republican politicians and replace them with Democrats.
More from The Hill:
<blockquote>The investment will fund a &#8220;large-scale&#8221; grassroots organization and canvass, digital, television, radio and mail programs.
&#8220;The stakes are higher than ever, and we&#8217;re coming out more powerfully than ever with the largest investment we&#8217;ve ever made,&#8221; said Kelley Robinson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes, in an interview with The Hill. &#8230;
&#8220;We know we&#8217;re going to have a critical role mobilizing those folks to win back the Senate and expand the path to 270 to win back the presidency,&#8221; Robinson said.</blockquote>
Notice the phrasing. &#8220;Win back the presidency.&#8221; Planned Parenthood is directly conflating its interest with the interests of elected Democrats, as if the two groups are joined at the hip. Of course, they are joined at the hip. The Democratic Party has long been a prostitute of the abortion industry — doing its bidding and dancing to its tune, as any informed person knows. None of this is news, although it is still notable.
Recall Planned Parenthood&#8217;s panicked reaction a few months ago, when the Trump administration threatened to cut off access to a portion of its tax funding. An executive <a href="https://q13fox.com/2019/08/22/planned-parenthood-feeling-the-lack-of-federal-funding/">fretted</a> that there would be a &#8220;public health crisis&#8221; spurred on by &#8220;this denial of care.&#8221; Indeed, any time Planned Parenthood funding is scrutinized, we are always assured that every dime of the $500 million it annually appropriates from taxpayers is necessary. One of its websites <a href="https://www.istandwithpp.org/defund-defined/impact-defunding-planned-parenthood">warns</a> of a &#8220;national health disaster&#8221; if Planned Parenthood&#8217;s pipeline to the public treasury is cut off or is obstructed in any way. But they&#8217;ve still got nearly $50 million to spend on politics, apparently.
You could argue that Planned Parenthood&#8217;s PAC is distinct from Planned Parenthood itself, which is technically true — just as it is technically true that the half a billion it receives from Uncle Sam doesn&#8217;t directly fund abortions. But these distinctions obscure the fact that money is fungible. By financially propping up one aspect of its business, we better enable it to fund the other parts. The taxpayer money keeps the whole ship afloat, and the PAC is certainly on the ship — or is at least attached to it.
But this is all besides the point. The real point is that Planned Parenthood — as Kelley Robinson in the above quote made perfectly clear — is an expressly ideological organization. It wouldn&#8217;t have a PAC trying to &#8220;win back the presidency&#8221; if that were not the case. It is outrageous that taxpayers are being forced to contribute billions to an organization with a clear political agenda. And we haven&#8217;t even mentioned the fact that this organization also happens to slaughter 300,000 children every year.
The Left insists that organizations like the NRA are corrupting our politics and buying off politicians. Whether this is true or not (and I don&#8217;t think it is), at least Republicans aren&#8217;t appropriating hundreds of millions of dollars from our paychecks every year to put it directly into the NRA&#8217;s coffers — so that the money can eventually end up in their own coffers. One can only imagine the reaction from the Left if such a system were ever instated. Well, they simply wouldn&#8217;t allow it. And yet Republicans have allowed the Democrats to launder campaign funds through Planned Parenthood for decades. That is maybe the biggest outrage of all.

Planned Parenthood

WALSH:   Planned Parenthood Is A Money Laundering Operation For The Democratic Party, And Republicans Refuse To Do Anything About It

Abortion

Republican Party

Trump Administration

During a &#8220;press marathon&#8221; on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the topic of his famous July 25 phone call with President Trump, including one of the &#8220;favors&#8221; Trump mentioned: to look into &#8220;the whole situation&#8221; of Ukraine&#8217;s role in the 2016 U.S. election.
&#8220;Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country,&#8221; <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446">Politico</a>&#8216;s Kenneth Vogel and David Stern wrote in a January 2017 report that has since been cited by multiple administration officials. &#8220;Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.&#8221;
During his call with Zelensky, Trump asked for a &#8220;favor&#8221; that included looking into &#8220;this whole situation with Ukraine&#8221; in 2016, including the role played by Ukrainian-based cybersecurity company Crowdstrike, which the Democratic National Committee used to review the hacking of its emails.
<div class="teaser-content">
<section>
&#8220;I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it,&#8221; Trump told Zelensky. &#8220;I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike&#8230; I guess you have one of your wealthy people&#8230; The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you&#8217;re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it&#8217;s very important that you do it if that&#8217;s possible.&#8221;
While <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/08/gop-theory-that-ukraine-set-up-trump/">The Washington Post</a> says that &#8220;evidence so far indicates there is nothing that took place in Ukraine that even begins to compare to the Russian intervention in the 2016 election&#8221; and slams Republicans&#8217; Crowdstrike suspicions as a &#8220;crazy stuff,&#8221; the Trump administration and some Republican congressmen, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), believe there&#8217;s more there than the media would like to admit.
During his &#8220;press marathon&#8221; Thursday, Zelensky announced that his government is &#8220;ready to investigate Ukraine&#8217;s alleged meddling in the U.S. elections,&#8221; referencing the 2016 election, Eastern Europe Correspondent <a href="https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1182261326992871424">Christopher Miller</a> reported Thursday in a <a href="https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019/10/10/siren-president-zelenskiy-says-were-ready-to-investigate-ukraines-alleged-meddling-in-the-us-elections/">series of tweets</a> issued during the press conference.
Zelensky also addressed his new attorney general that will be heading up future investigations.
&#8220;This is a new, young team, we&#8217;ll have a new attorney general, an open, honest person, 100%. This is my man, I said. I meant it was a person from my team, not from the old attorney general&#8217;s,&#8221; he said.
Asked by Miller about Ukraine&#8217;s potential meddling in the next election, Zelensky told him, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to interfere in any way in the U.S. elections and I will not be doing it&#8230; Elect your own president and do not interfere in the future elections of an independent Ukraine. With due respect for the United States and America&#8217;s policy, we are not serving the latter&#8217;s purpose, as we are an independent country. However, we do not want to lose our relations, we wish to strengthen them instead.&#8221;
Zelensky also once again confirmed that he did not even know about the U.S. withholding military aid until after the phone call with Trump, undermining the Democrats&#8217; claim that Trump was using the aid as &#8220;pressure&#8221; to force Ukraine to &#8220;dig up dirt&#8221; on Joe Biden.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Zelenskiy today also confirmed he didn&#8217;t know US had held up $391 million in military aid when he spoke to Trump on July 25. Here&#8217;s my reporting on that from last week, with comments from then-puzzled Ukrainian officials. <a href="https://t.co/I4Z59fsUvD">https://t.co/I4Z59fsUvD</a>
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1182267730872942592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump has since responded to Zelensky&#8217;s statements Thursday as more evidence that the Democrats&#8217; impeachment inquiry is a &#8220;scam.&#8221;
&#8220;The President of the Ukraine just stated again, in the strongest of language, that President Trump applied no pressure and did absolutely nothing wrong,&#8221; Trump tweeted. &#8220;He used the strongest language possible. That should end this Democrat Scam, but it won’t, because the Dems &amp; Media are FIXED!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
The President of the Ukraine just stated again, in the strongest of language, that President Trump applied no pressure and did absolutely nothing wrong. He used the strongest language possible. That should end this Democrat Scam, but it won’t, because the Dems &amp; Media are FIXED!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1182289435955777537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Below is the much-analyzed section of the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-transcript-call/index.html">transcript</a> of the July 25 call in which Trump asked for the favor to the look into Ukraine&#8217;s role in the 2016 election and alleged corruption involving the Bidens:
</section>
</div>
<blockquote>Trump: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike&#8230; I guess you have one of your wealthy people&#8230; The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you&#8217;re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it&#8217;s very important that you do it if that&#8217;s possible.
Zelensky: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I can assure you.
Trump: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that&#8217;s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what&#8217;s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There&#8217;s a lot of talk about Biden&#8217;s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it&#8230; It sounds horrible to me.
Zelensky: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all, I understand and I&#8217;m knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.
Trump: Well, she&#8217;s going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I&#8217;m sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It&#8217;s a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people.</blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sen-cotton-has-some-questions-for-the-intelligence-community-ig-regarding-the-whistleblower-complaint">Sen. Cotton Has Some Questions For The Intelligence Community IG Regarding The Whistleblower Complaint</a>

Volodymyr Zelensky

Ukraine President: We&#8217;re Ready To Investigate Ukraine&#8217;s Alleged Meddling In 2016 U.S. Election

Hillary Clinton

Pat Cipollone

Trump Admin Shreds Democrats’ Impeachment Attempt In Scathing Legal Letter

In a move that has turned heads in the media and prompted pushback from critics, House Democrats are considering taking &#8220;extraordinary steps&#8221; to hide the identity of the Ukraine call whistleblower from President Trump&#8217;s &#8220;congressional allies.&#8221; The Democrats&#8217; consideration of &#8220;unprecedented&#8221; measures come amid new revelations about the whistleblower&#8217;s reported &#8220;political bias.&#8221;
Citing &#8220;three officials familiar with the deliberations,&#8221; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-democrats-consider-masking-identity-of-whistleblower-from-trumps-gop-allies-in-congress/2019/10/07/171a4b14-e927-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html">The Washington Post</a> reported Monday that the House Democrats heading up the investigation into Trump&#8217;s alleged &#8220;pressuring&#8221; of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former vice president and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden are considering conducting the whistleblower&#8217;s interview in &#8220;a remote location&#8221; and &#8220;obscuring the individual’s appearance and voice.&#8221;
&#8220;There are lots of different protocols and procedures we&#8217;re looking into to find out what works and doesn&#8217;t work to protect the identity of the whistleblower,&#8221; one of the sources told the Post. The protection of the whistleblower&#8217;s identity is &#8220;paramount,&#8221; the source stressed.
<div class="remainder-content">
<section>
<div class="cb bg-offwhite mt-xxs pad-top-md pad-bottom-md mb-lg ml-neg-gutter mr-neg-gutter mr-auto-ns ml-auto-ns dn db-ns relative">
<div class="relative z-1">
<div class=" ">
<div class="teads-inread sm-screen">
&#8220;The highly unusual arrangement for the whistleblower’s testimony underscores the toxicity between Republicans and Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, which was once considered among the most bipartisan but is now spearheading the divisive impeachment investigation,&#8221; the Post notes. &#8220;One individual familiar with the discussions said this is the first time the panel has had to take such extraordinary measures to protect a witness — including from their GOP colleagues.&#8221;
As Trump and other Republicans are calling for the whistleblower&#8217;s identity to be revealed, more information has come to light. Along with The New York Times revealing last week that the whistleblower is a CIA agent who was assigned to the White House, The Washington Examiner&#8217;s <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/whistleblower-had-professional-tie-to-2020-democratic-candidate">Byron York</a> reported Tuesday that Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson wrote in an Aug. 26 letter that the whistleblower had &#8220;some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate.&#8221;
Citing three different sources familiar with Atkinson&#8217;s testimony to congressional investigators on Friday, York reports that rather than the whistleblower&#8217;s &#8220;political bias&#8221; simply being that he or she is a registered Democrat, as many on the left have suggested, the whistleblower reportedly had &#8220;a prior working relationship with a current 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.&#8221;
<blockquote>&#8220;The IG said [the whistleblower] worked or had some type of professional relationship with one of the Democratic candidates,&#8221; said one person with knowledge of what was said.
&#8220;The IG said the whistleblower had a professional relationship with one of the 2020 candidates,&#8221; said another person with knowledge of what was said.
&#8220;What [Atkinson] said was that the whistleblower self-disclosed that he was a registered Democrat and that he had a prior working relationship with a current 2020 Democratic presidential candidate,&#8221; said a third person with knowledge of what was said.</blockquote>
The Democrats&#8217; &#8220;extraordinary steps&#8221; to hide the whistleblower&#8217;s identity from Republicans has inspired widespread criticism online. In response to various outlets&#8217; coverage of the story posted on Twitter, critics have slammed the Democrats&#8217; for conducting themselves like a &#8220;<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BananaRepublic&amp;src=typd">#BananaRepublic</a>&#8221; and presiding over a &#8220;<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/KangarooCourt?src=hash">#KangarooCourt</a>.&#8221; Among the critics is House Republican Whip Steve Scalise.
&#8220;This entire process has been a scam,&#8221; Rep. Scalise tweeted Monday. &#8220;Dems now plan to only allow themselves and their staff to know the whistleblower’s identity, while concealing it from Republican committee members. This is unprecedented. What are they trying to hide??&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This entire process has been a scam.
Dems now plan to only allow themselves and their staff to know the whistleblower’s identity, while concealing it from Republican committee members.
This is unprecedented. What are they trying to hide??<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/KangarooCourt?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#KangarooCourt</a> <a href="https://t.co/AmIvachqKN">https://t.co/AmIvachqKN</a>
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveScalise/status/1181333492887478272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham also slammed the Democrats for the secretive move.
&#8220;Everyone in America &#8212; including President <a class="PrettyLink profile customisable h-card" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump" data-mentioned-user-id="25073877" data-scribe="element:mention">@realDonaldTrump</a> &#8212; has the right to confront their accuser,&#8221; tweeted Graham. &#8220;If impeachment is designed to ‘Uphold the Constitution’ you are in the process of destroying it by preventing the President and his team from confronting the witnesses against them. This is an unsustainable position.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
If impeachment is designed to ‘Uphold the Constitution’ you are in the process of destroying it by preventing the President and his team from confronting the witnesses against them.
This is an unsustainable position.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) <a href="https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1181353203465633792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump also picked up on the &#8220;kangaroo court&#8221; theme, tweeting Tuesday after the State Department told U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland not to appear at a scheduled interview with Democrat-led congressional committees, &#8220;I would love to send Ambassador Sondland, a really good man and great American, to testify, but unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republican’s rights have been taken away, and true facts are not allowed out for the public to see.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8230;.to see. Importantly, Ambassador Sondland’s tweet, which few report, stated, “I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear: no quid pro quo’s of any kind.” That says it ALL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1181560772255719424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Others who have blasted the Democrats&#8217; secretive measures include Brit Hume and Jonah Goldberg:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
That would do a lot for the credibility of their investigations, making it blatantly partisan. <a href="https://t.co/5ippZvf26u">https://t.co/5ippZvf26u</a>
— Brit Hume (@brithume) <a href="https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1181346042312364043?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This is incandescently stupid. <a href="https://t.co/2bglOaHZaO">https://t.co/2bglOaHZaO</a>
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/JonahDispatch/status/1181386505362776064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bombshell-whistleblower-had-a-significant-tie-to-democrat-challenging-trump-in-2020-election-report-says">Whistleblower ‘Had A Significant’ Tie To Democrat Challenging Trump In 2020 Election, Report Says</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</section>
</div>

Adam Schiff

‘SCAM’: Democrats’ ‘Unprecedented’ Moves To Hide Whistleblower’s Identity Met With Strong Pushback, New Revelations

Lindsey Graham

Steve Scalise

Menu

Democratic Party

Articles tagged with Democratic Party

Impeachment Wire: The Latest On The Effort To Impeach President Trump

HAMMER: Trump Needs To Focus On A Safety And Security Agenda For 2020

WATCH: Mike Rowe Gives Devastating Summary Of Democratic Candidates’ Economic Agenda

KNOWLES: Beto O’Rourke Placed His Faith In Leftism And Lost

KLAVAN: Joe Biden Stumbles Through His Nonsense Tax Plan

Here’s The Embarrassing DNA Test Video Warren Scrubbed From Twitter

Congressman Elijah Cummings Passes Away

Pat Sajak Offers Two Tweets Hilariously Summing Up Dem Presidential Debate

CURL: THE GAFFE KING: Biden Stumbles, Bumbles His Way Through Debate

Beto O’Rourke Tries To Explain Why He Isn’t Calling For The Government To Confiscate Handguns

Who Will Win The Democratic Primary? The Latest On 2020 Presidential Primary Polling.

Rand Paul Calls For Probe Into 4 Democratic Senators Over Threats To Ukraine

WALSH: Applauding Child Abuse, Denying Science — The Democrats Put Their Insanity And Cruelty On Display Last Night

DYS: Beto O’Rourke’s ‘Liberty’ Is No Liberty At All

Meghan McCain To Shapiro: Future Of The Democratic Party ‘Very Scary’

Democratic Lawmaker Slams Beto O’Rourke And The Democratic Party: ‘I Don’t Think Losing Is Cool’

WALSH: Planned Parenthood Is A Money Laundering Operation For The Democratic Party, And Republicans Refuse To Do Anything About It

Ukraine President: We’re Ready To Investigate Ukraine’s Alleged Meddling In 2016 U.S. Election

Trump Admin Shreds Democrats’ Impeachment Attempt In Scathing Legal Letter

‘SCAM’: Democrats’ ‘Unprecedented’ Moves To Hide Whistleblower’s Identity Met With Strong Pushback, New Revelations