April 20, 2025 • 39 mins
Bill Maher discovers the real Trump and disappoints the left. TX AG Ken Paxton discusses his run for Senate in the GOP primary against incumbent John Cornyn and the battle to deport illegal aliens. Former WI Congressman Mike Gallagher, now the head of defense at Palantir, on Covid accountability and the lab leak cover-up.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Team forty seven podcast is sponsored by Good Ranchers
Making the American Farm Strong Again.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Team forty seven with Clay and Buck starts.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Now wanted to give credit to Bill Maher who, being
willing to go actually meet with President and Trump in person.
He had a dinner with Kid Rock at the in
the White House after I believe they went into the
Oval Office as well, and I want to play some
of the cuts. This is from Bill Maher's HBO show,
(00:33):
and I think what Bill Maher is saying here is
what many of you have found in your experience is
either listening to Trump on this program or other programs
over the last decade. I believe the number is that
I have been involved in interviewing Trump, either by myself
or with Buck Now eleven times, and so I feel
(00:56):
like I know Trump fairly well at this point. We've
talked to him hours on this program during the course
of the last four years. And what Bill Maher is
saying is what I have found to be true of
Trump in private. He's an incredibly likable, charismatic guy who
frankly feels kind of like a grandpa when I have
(01:19):
been around him. And let's listen to a couple of
these cuts. He also has, and I think this is important,
a pretty good sense of humor. He's actually very, very funny,
and most of his critics don't get it. Here's Bill
Maher saying he showed up with a list of insults
that Trump had called him, and Trump autographed it for him,
(01:42):
which is incredible. Listened to cut fifteen.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Before I left for the Capitol. I had my staff
collect and print out this list of almost sixteen different
insulting epithets that the President has said about me, things
like stupid, dummy, low life, dummy, sleeves bag six said,
stone cold crazy, really a dumb.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Guy, fired like a dog. His show is dead.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Six.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I brought this to the White House because I wanted
him to sign it.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Which he did, which he did with good humor.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
All Right, I mean, this is how it should be.
I talked about the Taylor Lorenz. Oh he's a morally
good man. That's not how it should be. How it
should be is people can disagree, sometimes they might even
say mean things, but when they meet face to face
they behave like adults. And most of the time I
(02:46):
have found when you meet someone face to face, you
are more likely to like them, particularly when it's someone
like Donald Trump that is actually very likable. We've said
on this program for a long time. Look, you can
disagree with his policies. I am one hundred percent of
the opinion that you can look at Trump's policies and
you can say I hate the terrify ideas. You can say, hey,
(03:07):
I think we should have free and wide open borders.
You can say police are too empowered, or he's taking
too much executive authority. I don't agree with those arguments,
but I think you can make those arguments and be
a rational, normal human being. What you can't say is
he's Hitler. He's not in any way remotely similar to
(03:29):
Adolf Hitler. Disagree with his policies, attacking him personally is absurd.
And what I have said for some time is, and
I bet what Bill Maher now recognizes. Trump is an
energy person. Whatever energy you give to him, he gives
back to you ten x. So if you are favorable
(03:49):
and kind, he's going to be ten times as favorable
and ten times as kind to you. If you are unfavorable, uncharitable, cruel, mean,
he's going to get give that back to you ten x.
Whatever you give, Trump gives back ten x. That's the
lesson that everybody should have learned by now. And actually,
(04:10):
face to face, he tends to be really good. I've
said this before I met Trump for the first time
in person in October of twenty twenty. I took my
wife and at the time oldest son, who was I
believe in seventh grade.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Trump was unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
With him, unbelievable with my seventh grader in the Oval
Office the time he spent with him, he was just
a fabulous, grandfatherly like figure. My wife, like a lot
of women, was not a huge fan of Donald Trump
before she met him. After meeting him in the Oval Office,
(04:51):
since she's met him a couple of times since, she
loves him. He is really incredible face to face one
on one, not only with the people there, but with kids.
Really really good with kids. He's met all of my sons,
by the way, they were more interested in meeting mister
Beast than the President. No offense to the President, but
(05:15):
he's met all of my kids. Fabulous with all of them,
just like a good grandpa would be. And I bet
if you had the good fortune to get to meet
the president and you got to meet him with your
kids or with your grandkids. He would be phenomenal with them.
And this is what Bill Maher is saying. Bill maher
like kind of built this mountain of Trump as an
(05:36):
awful person based on public persona, and then he had
to go out and tell his audience on Friday. Actually
we had a phenomenal dinner and Trump was incredible. Here
is Bill maher on meeting Trump, cut sixteen.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
He laughs just.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
For starters, he laughs. I'd never seen him laugh in public,
but he does, including it himself, and it's not fake.
Believe me, as a comedian of forty years, I know
a fake laugh when I hear it. Okay, example, in
the Oval office, he was showing me the portraits of
presidents and he pointed to Reagan and said, in all seriousness,
(06:13):
you know the best thing about him his hair. I said, well,
there was also that whole bringing down communism thing. Waiting
for the button next to the diet coke button to
get pushed and I go through the trap door. But no,
he laughed.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
He got it. He has a really good sense of humor.
He's also insanely self aware. Some of you may have
seen me on Fox and friends over the weekend. I'll
take feedback by the way, eight hundred two two eight
a two. I'll tell you what my mom said in
a moment. But I said this because we were playing
some of the cuts.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
From the moment.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Jimmy Fallon allowed himself to get bullied humanizing Trump. Every
comedian by and large was terrified of the general public,
and they refuse to treat Trump like a normal human being.
It's actually incredibly unfortunate because if you go back and
watch Trump on Saturday Night Live, he has a great
(07:18):
sense of humor. I think Trump would have been really
good on Jimmy Kimmel. I think he would have been
really good with Fallan. I think he would have been
really good with Stephen Colbert and on Saturday Night Live,
because unlike a lot of politicians, he actually has a
good sense of humor about himself. And I have made
this argument for a long time on the dictator front.
(07:42):
Dictators don't have good senses of humor because humor requires
a knowledge and nuance of how you are seen in
the world that is at large. And that's why dictators
require complete obsequious business. They require that you basically bend
(08:02):
the need to them all the time that you genuflect
at their photo that's hanging on the wall, at their portrait,
because they have to be seen as larger than you,
more important than you, and comedy cuts everybody down to size.
This is why having kids important in many ways. I
think kids tell you exactly what they think. Kids and
(08:27):
old people, super old people, they are like, I don't
give a heck anymore. Super young kids they don't have
the filters built in to say what they think.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I remember.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I mean, there's tons of things that kids will say,
but I remember my three year old got me good
about seven years ago, the youngest at that time.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
We were playing.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
He said, Dad, he said, yeah, said, you have old hands.
I never thought about my hands in my entire life,
holding them up now for you on video. I was like,
what do you mean. He's like, they're wrinkly, they're like
old man hands. And I was like, I'd never even
thought about what my hands looked like before. I didn't
think I was George Costanza hand model. But my three
(09:12):
year old is like, you know, like, hey, Dad, you
know you're not a super young guy anymore. You got
old guy hands. And it's that puncturing, right, and I'll
play you a cut and a little bit of Trump
on Air Force one after he was at the UFC
three fourteen with Kai Trump, his granddaughter. The grandkids make
(09:32):
fun of him. That's healthy. Yeah, he's the president of
the United States, but he's also grandpa and grandma, and
he and Milanya, and so they have normal human interactions.
I don't imagine that Kim Jong un has very many
normal interactions. I frankly don't imagine that Vladimir Putin has
(09:53):
very many normal human interactions. Maybe I'm wrong, but this
is what Bill Maher was getting at here. Also, he
says Trump was gracious and measured, and his audience is
hearing what is the truth. But much like when I
was talking about earlier with George Clooney and the play,
they aren't able to see the larger perspective because many
(10:13):
of them have bought into the idea that he's Hitler.
Listen to cut fourteen.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
He said, you know, I've heard from a lot of
people who really liked that we're having this dinner.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Not all, but a lot.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And I said same. A lot of people told me
they loved it, but not all, and we agreed. The
people who don't even want us to talk. We don't
like you don't talk as opposed to what writing the
same editorial for the millionth time and making twenty five
hour speeches into the wind. Okay, that's my report. You
(10:45):
can hate me for it, but I'm not a liar.
Trump was gracious and measured. And why he isn't that
in other settings I don't know, and I can't answer,
and it's not my place to answer. I'm just telling
you what I saw, and I wasn't high.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
It's great and that audience.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Again, I encourage as many of these outreaches as Trump
can do.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
I think if you meet him.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Face to face, the caricature that you have built in
your mind on the left is not represented by the
man that you will meet. I guarantee you that. And
we have a tendency in this world, and I try
to be conscious of it in the way that I
talk to to build twenty foot tall caricatures of people
(11:34):
that are just a few inches deep. In other words,
when you walk up to it, it's like you can
punch through it and it's paper mache. It looks like
this huge statue. Oh my goodness, look at this. This
is twenty feet tall. You can't miss it, and then
when you're actually confronted with it, you realize there's no
(11:54):
depth to it. You can punch right through it and
you see the real person on the other side. Now,
some people are fake. Many politicians, I would say, are
fake because they're desperate.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
To make you like them.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
They feel like if they pretend to be something, that
you will like them. Trump is not that. It's why
he wasn't a professional politician. He is just himself, for
better or worse. And I think the reason why he
had so much more support by twenty twenty four is
a lot of people saw what Bill Maher did, which
(12:32):
is that twenty foot caricature that the legacy media were
telling you that he's Adolf Hitler, that he's got the
Hitler mustache, that he's gonna it's not real. It wasn't
in any way accurate. And meanwhile, the twenty foot caricature
that they tried to create of Joe Biden, which was
incredibly beneficial, when you got up close to it, you
saw that that was all fake too. And I've said
(12:55):
in my new book that I'm writing, I think this
gets to the essence of it. Author authenticity ends cancel culture.
When you are the authentic version of yourself, for better
or worse, you can't be canceled in public anymore because
people are over it now. If you lie, if you
(13:19):
are fake, if you are not honest with your audience,
then you can be canceled. And I'll give you an
example that just as historic. Why did Bill Clinton keep
his job after he had an affair with an intern
in the Oval office? Bill Clinton slept with an intern.
(13:40):
Now you can say, okay, well that was nineteen ninety six,
nineteen ninety seven, it's a different era.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
And I think that's true.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
But the reason why I think he kept his job
was because, deep down, a lot of people kind of
thought that that was something that Bill Clinton might do.
You didn't really think, oh, this is a guy who's
completely committed to his wife. You didn't think Bill and
Hillary Clinton, this is the greatest couple of our lives.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
You kind of thought.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Bill Clinton not really that much into Hillary Clinton. He's
probably going to sleep with somebody else while he's president.
I think if George W. Bush had done, it might
have cost him his job. I think if Barack Obama
had done, it might have cost him his job. But
Bill Clinton, it actually reflected in some way what we
anticipated and believed about him. I think Clinton was authentically himself.
(14:36):
I think Al Gore, who tried to replace him, wasn't.
I think George W. Bush was. Trump is what you
would think he is if you are honest and have
been seeing all of the coverage surrounding him. I think
what Bill Maher experienced, it's what I've experienced, it's what
Buck experienced, It's what most of you would experience. If
(14:59):
you had the eyes opportunity to meet Trump, and if
you took your kids or grandkids to meet Trump too,
I'm telling you you would really like him and.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
He would be fabulous with you.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
That I believe is one reason that he's been so
successful as a politician. He's actually just kind of a
likable guy. And if you remember before he got into politics,
that was his reputation. A little bit of a bragger,
a little bit in love with himself. Yeah, you can
say that about Trump. I was just playing one of
(15:31):
the West Palm Beach and he had framed that he
was one of the richest people in the world. In
the locker room, all the different paintings and pictures hanging
on the wall. I think a lot of rich people
probably wouldn't frame the magazine cover that called them one
of the richest people in the world and hang it
up in their locker room. But that's Trump, and I
(15:54):
think the reason why he's having so much more success
in this second term is more and more people are,
like Bill Moore, are finding out what the truth is well,
tax filing deadline for the i r S. Good for
him for meeting, Good for Trump for meeting. Thank you
to Kid Rock Dana White for setting it up. I
think we need way more of this.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You're listening to Team forty seven with Clay and Buck.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
Attorney General Ken Taxton of the state of Texas he
joins us now from Dallas, and mister Attorney General Paxston.
Appreciate you calling in, sir.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Hey, glad to be on. I appreciate you having me on.
You's gonna be a fun, fun, fun year coming up.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Can I We know you've announced your Senate run and
so that's that's a very you know, very very exciting
for you and your team that you're going to be
You've thrown your hat on the ring for that.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
I want to talk to you more about that.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
In the meantime, though, I thought perhaps you could just
give us your perspective if if a state attorney general
is involved in multiple mortgage frauds, if that is found
to be true, shouldn't that state attorney general. I'm sure
you're familiar with what's going on in New York and
Attorney General Letitia James and the allegations that are out
there right now. Aren't you, Attorney General Packson held to
(17:05):
a higher standard as a chief law enforcement officer in
your state, and shouldn't that be the case in New
York as well?
Speaker 6 (17:12):
Well? Certainly not necessarily a higher standard, but she had
to be held to the standard that everybody else is,
which is, if she's violating the law, she should be
held accountable for that, and if she's committed a crime,
she should be prosecuted for that. And obviously that would
affect her ability to continue as Attorney General of New York.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
A lot of discussion. Well, first of all, let's allow
you to tell our audience, who may not have heard otherwise,
you have had a lot of success in Texas electoral
politics already. You've won a lot of battles, You've fought
a lot of battles. People have coming after you aggressively,
and you are going to be running now for the
Senate from Texas that is next year, but the process
(17:54):
is underway. Wins the primary, what do you expect it
to look like? And for people out there that may
not have been familiar with you in the past, why
are you the right choice?
Speaker 6 (18:04):
So the primary is the first to DMR. So we're,
you know, approximately ten and a half months away from
the primary. And obviously John corn is our current center,
been there for twenty three years, going on twenty four.
He'd like to state thirty. For one, I think that's
too long. And for two, I don't feel like he's
done a good job representing our people. I don't think
(18:27):
he's done a good job. And I think there is
it's time for a change. So that's why I'm running.
There's a lot of issues that I'm frustrated I think
our voters are frustrated with and it takes a lot
of effort to win a statewide race in Texas. You
need name ID, you need money, and they've just start
that many people that have the name ID or the
ability to raise funds that can go against the sitting incumbent,
(18:51):
especially in the state of Texas, which.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
We may have just lost him there for a sec
want to make sure he get his cell phone. He's
in Dallas right now, he's begun the campaign, and he
was just laying out buck what is going to be
probably I think it's fair to say the biggest Republican
primary battle in twenty twenty six anywhere in the country.
John Cornyn, who has been in office for some time,
(19:18):
current sitting Texas Senator, and Ken Paxton, who is the
Attorney General right now of Texas, very well known. But
I wanted you guys to hear from him exactly the
choice that he was making is going to be a big, expensive,
huge battle.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
He just laid it out. March him next year.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
So let me ask you, just Attorney General Paxston, because
this this is going to be a primary a lot
of people spend time thinking about and involved in. Will
be a lot of dollars and for anyone who's listening,
I just want to be clear we will because we
don't endorse in primaries. We will have an invite out
to Senator Cornyn as well so he can make his case.
But Attorney General Paxton, where have you broken with Cornyn
(19:59):
on a ma your issue and what you said that
you're not you don't agree with some of the positions
he's taken and some of what he's done to represent
the state of Texas. Can you give us some example
so we can just start to understand what the differences
are between the two of you.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
Sure, I'll give you a couple of examples. First was
his push for the gun restrictions that he was able
to pass with the encouragement of Joe Biden. And he
was able to do that, restricting gun ownership rights, very
unpopular position in Texas and particularly in the primary issue
might imagine, and I remember after it was done that
(20:32):
Donald Trump came out and called them rhino and President
Biden congratulated him on doing a great job. That will
never happen with me. You will never see me congratulated
by a president like Joe Biden. Another issue that he's
been very, very bad on is the border. He's criticized
Trump's building of the wall over and over. He said
negative things about it and not wanting to do it.
(20:54):
He's insinuated that he would be for amnesty. Those are
both very unpopular positions in Texas, where a border stays.
We need all the protection we can get, not less.
And then, of course he's been he's not been a
fan of President Trump. In twenty sixteen, he called President
Trump and albatross around our neck, and in twenty twenty
four he said he was not endorsing President Trump, that
we should go, we should move on, and that he
(21:16):
also insinuated that President Trump had committed crimes and potentially
should be held accountable for this time. So those are
three of the issues that are I think are important
to our voters, and I think those are distinguished very
much distinguished me from him.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
So let's dive into this in particular, you just mentioned
President Trump. I think he won the state of Texas
by twelve fourteen points. You probably know the exact margin,
but it wasn't close. I'm assuming that, if he hasn't already,
that he is going to be endorsing you pretty wholeheartedly
for this office, given that you have worked quite a
lot with Trump when it comes to the border, when
(21:56):
it comes to legal related issues, how effective do you
think you would be working with Trump in twenty twenty
seven if you're able to hold that right hand up
and become the next Senator from Texas.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
Yeah, certainly the endorsement is up to him. I don't
presume anything, but I will say this, I've had a
great working relationship with President Trump from almost the day
he got into office. I didn't know him, but we
went back and forth on many many issues while he
was in his first term. I've kept in touch with
him since then during the times he was out of office,
and have been a big sport. As matter of fact,
(22:30):
I was one of two elected officials that showed up
at mar A Lago. The other was Troyonell's Congressman Troynell's
that actually showed up when he announced, because if you'll
remember when he announced, there was a lot of issues
swirling about his legal issues. A lot of Republicans were
keeping their distance because DeSantis was on the move, and
I was there with Troynelle because one knew I knew
the President trub would do a great job. And two,
(22:53):
you know, I'm loyal to people that I trust and
I believe in.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Speaking of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, he is going
to be running for a Senate seat against the incumbent there,
John Cornyn, and A. G.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Paxton.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
I wanted to lean on your legal expertise if I
could for a second, how do you assess this? This
uh back and forth?
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Right?
Speaker 5 (23:17):
The media is completely drilled into now this mister Abrago Garcia,
who is being currently held in El Salvador. Just I
wanted to just hear what you think about all of
the uh, the objections that are coming from some people
about the process, the judge that's involved, what you think
(23:37):
should happen. You know, you handle these kinds of decisions
as a as an attorney general for our second biggest state.
What do you think about what's going on here?
Speaker 6 (23:47):
Well, I think this judge across the line, this is
a this is the executive branch, so he's the judge
is a crossed We're all about separation of powers. Is
Justiary's supposed to be the weakest branch, and they are
supposed to stay out of the legislative side, and they're
supposed to say, out of the executive side. This judge
has clearly stepped into the shoes of the executive role
(24:08):
and taking control of the situation. I think that's wrong
and I think that needs to stop. I think Congress
needs to act and stop these nationwide injunctions that aren't
based in any fact or law, and we certainly there's
I think there are narrow cases that we use against
Joe Biden when it was a nationwide issue, that this
one is clearly in the purview of the executive and
(24:31):
this judge just needs to be stopped.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
How has life in Texas changed since Joe Biden left office?
Trump came in in particular when it comes to the border.
We talk about it on the program because basically the
border has ceased to be an issue at all. It
is now secure. What does that look like? What does
it feel like in Texas?
Speaker 6 (24:52):
It's I mean, I think people are excited, they feel safer.
The costliness of it has gone down. Obviously for US,
we a lot of expense from law enforcement, health, insurance,
all kinds of different issues. Education, that's our cost. And
the Celler government never stepped in. Even though they were
inviting these people in and working with the cartels to
(25:13):
get them across the border, they were not helping us financially,
and so it's a huge relief to us. And obviously
our legislatures spent billions of dollars trying to protect the
border in lieu of the Biden administration doing just the opposite.
So it has a tremendous financial impact, but it's also
I think people just feel safer knowing that we have
a president that's protecting our order.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We're number one in Austin, off and on, We're number
one in San Antonio, off and on. We are number
one in Houston, off and on. I say off and
on because on a weekly, monthly basis things can evolve.
But we have monster audience across the entire state of Texas,
and we appreciate all of you listening right now. We're
also newly on in Dallas, which is where I think
you are right now. When you look at this March
(25:58):
primary that is coming up next year, I know the
answer is everywhere in terms of where will this race
be decided, but in particular what areas? What has turnout
look like a lot of times people don't show up
necessarily in big numbers for primaries.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
What does it take for you to beat.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
An incumbent senator who certainly is going to have a
lot of money as well? Well.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
I mean, we've already done three polls with three different polsters.
I did one with Trump's polster that had me up
by twenty five. I did one with Ted Cruiz's bolster
that has me twenty five, and we did a third
one just to make sure it's twenty seven. So the votors,
I mean a lot of it's already baked in. They
know John Corny's been an officer for over forty years.
They know me. I've been in office for in the
Attorney General's office for eleven years now, and so I
(26:42):
think the primary voters are really educated. I feel very
strongly that we are going to do well everywhere, and
it's it's all based on record, and he's going to
have to spend the seaton. His record is not what
the voters want. He's not going to be talking about
his record. He's not going to be talking about mine,
because my record is a record that the voters like.
(27:03):
He's going to be going negative personally. That's that's his
a lot of attack, and he's got to pray that
somehow Trump does not that he endorses him, because that
would be his only way of getting into the game,
and he's still going to lose.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Do you think it's possible he drops out, decides not
to run.
Speaker 6 (27:21):
Look, I don't presume anything, he says he's running I'm playing.
I'm playing this for you know. I'm going to run
against John Corny, So that would be a great question
for him. I'm sure no matter what he's thinking in
his head, it's got across his mind. If he's that
far down, he's pulled that he knows that he's behind
by double digits. And look, I've been to the Republican conventions.
The last time he spoke that he dared to speak
(27:43):
to the Republican voters, that was three years ago. He
got booed for thirty straight minutes. And I'm not talking
to quiet boos. I'm talking loudly booed for thirty minutes.
And that was all based on what he did with
the restrictions on on gun ownership in our state.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
Tourney.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
General Packson, appreciate you being with us, sir. Best luck
to you. We'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
Hey, have a great day. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
You're listening to Team forty seven with Clay and Buck.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
We are joined now by Mike Gallagher. He is head
of defense at Palentier. He's got a really interesting piece
in the Wall Street Journal Time for Accountability on the
COVID lab leak cover up? Mike, appreciate you making the
time for us.
Speaker 7 (28:23):
What's an honor to be with you.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Let's just jump into it. You got into this in
your piece. What does accountability look like? What does the
public need to know? What steps have to be taken?
Now when it comes to the lab leak cover up?
I see, I love that there's a picture of Fauci
touching a little fake virus in your op ed.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
He's the absolute worst. What needs to happen.
Speaker 7 (28:47):
Well, I can't claim credit for the artwork that comes
with these op eds. I just do the words. But
it was it was quite nice to me. It just
starts with the basic step of complete declassification of relevant
and intelligence. If you remember, we actually passed the law
when I was in Congress requiring that the Biden administration
do just that, but they didn't comply with the law.
(29:09):
When they finally did an investigation into the origins of COVID,
it was not serious. What came out was heavily redacted.
It was a regurgitation of the prevailing consensus. And so
there's been no accountability for our own scientific establishment, which
was profoundly corrupted. Our own intelligence community was parroting the
(29:29):
corrupted consensus of the scientists, and even the authors of
the proximal Origins article, which spread a lot of this
misinformation have not been held accountable. If the opposite has happened,
they continue to get awards. Fauci continues to be lauded,
and we have centers named after Fauci. And without that
basic step of accountability, people just aren't going to trust
(29:51):
the government. They're not going to trust the health institutions,
the scientific institutions, and therefore were less prepared to prevent
a future pandemic. So I think accountabilit all these starts
with getting the information out there, even if it's super
embarrassing to the government. Agencies that allow tax dayer dollars
to be fundled, funneled to corrupt nonprofits like the Eco
(30:12):
Health Alliance and wind their way into the hands of
the Luhan Institute of Virology, there's been no accountability thus far.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That's why I read your piece and I appreciate you
coming on with us. I know how busy you are
in your new job, and we'll talk about that maybe
in a moment, but trump for people who do not know,
I encourage you to go to COVID dot gov today
and look at everything that's being laid out there. We're
five years after COVID, and Buck and I focus on
(30:42):
this a lot because we're kind of history nerds, and
one of the good things about time passing is over time,
history I like to think becomes more honest about what
really transpired. Are you optimistic that twenty forty years from
now will get a more honest version of what happened
(31:02):
and the failures of this nation when it comes to
responding to COVID in generations ahead? Or do you think
the same people that are trying to stop us now
will continue to fight for generations into the future to
avoid acknowledging how wrong they were.
Speaker 7 (31:18):
Well, I would only say I don't think we have twenty,
let alone forty years right. We had a report a
few months ago that in February, researchers that the will
had Ince Vivirology had experimented with a new bat coronavirus
that looked a lot similar to COVID nineteen. What you
learn is you sort of dig into the nature of
what happened in Muhan, but lab accidents more broadly is
(31:40):
that these are actually more common than we realize, and
so part of the push for accountability is based on
the idea that the risks of a pandemic like the
one we went through with COVID nineteen or with one
that could be far worse if a future virus were
just as pathenogenic or more lethal. Rather, those risks have
(32:02):
not gone down. We haven't learned any lessons, and so
we need accountability on a year timeline, not a twenty
year time which is why I was very glad to
see that President Trump launched his website. I would encourage
all Americans to go to the website right now and
really lays out five basic common sense truths that the
government heretofore has not acknowledged. One the virus possessed biological
(32:25):
characteristics that you couldn't find in nature. To all the
data suggests it stems from a single introduction into humans,
not multiple spillovers like previous pandemics. Three, That the Wuhan
Institute had conducted gain to function research at an adequate
safety levels, or that the researchers at the Wuhan It's
Too fell ill with COVID months before the virus was
(32:46):
allegedly discovered at a web market and finally, after all
these years, there's no scientific evidence of a natural origin
that has surfaced. That alone has done more to advance
the case of accountability than under four years of President Biden.
So we need to press the gas. We need to
hold our own agencies accountable, and again we need to
declassify all the relevant information.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
Mike, I wanted to pivot a little bit here and
lean into another area of expertise, something you're dealing with
day in and day out now as head of Defense
at Palenteer Technologies. I think one of the lessons that
anybody paying attention to what's going on over in Ukraine
with Russia, and especially if they're looking ahead at the
possibility at some point in the future of some kind
(33:28):
of hot conflict with China, is technology is going.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
To be absolutely critical.
Speaker 5 (33:33):
We're looking at drones, We're looking at a future of
telecommunications and high speed computing making decisions on the battlefield.
That is truly the stuff of sci fi from not
long ago, and it's it's becoming reality now every day.
But with that said, I know Palenteers involved in the
high tech edge of things with defense.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
It wasn't long.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Ago where Google was upset there was like an uprising
at good Google over the prospect of doing anything that
helped the United States Pentagon, right, like as if Silicon
Valley was its own little thief toom that did not
actually become or was not actually a part of the
United States. Do you feel like that is changing now?
(34:15):
Do you feel like there's an understanding that companies that
are US based, that employee Americans have a role in
defense and that means that they should take a patriotic
position on Yeah, we will work with the United States Pentagon.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
I think it is changing. I mean Google has actually
recently changed its position. And if you remember at the time,
the reason so many of us got upset when Google
abandoned Project Maven is they were simultaneously trying to work
with China AI exactly an AI center in Beijing. It
was substantly revealed there was a project that they did abandon,
but a project they were exploring to censor Internet search
(34:52):
in China. So the message was, well, We're cool working
with a genocidal communist regime, but not with the American military,
because the American military occasionally has to do things like
kill Salacity Jahadis in order to keep America safe, and
so into the brief steps Talenteer, which was unapologetic in
its belief that America is the greatest country in the
(35:13):
history of the world, that we should have the most
lethal military in the world, and that some folks, be
they terrorists or other bad guys, need to be killed occasionally.
And I do think what we're seeing on the battlefield
in Ukraine is forcing people to re examine their previously
held assumptions. There's a lot of capital in the venture
capital community that is trying to flow into defense technology companies.
(35:35):
And finally, I would say not to talk to my
own book, but when you have a company like Palenter
that spent two decades trying to survive the so called
Valley of Death because it isn't easy for a defense
technology company to succeed because the Pentagon can be a
difficult customer, it proves to other companies that are trying
to do the same that it's possible to survive, it's
possible to go public, it's possible to have a mission
(35:59):
focused company that also is successful financially, which is why
we founded something called the First Breakfast Initiative, which is
designed to make it easier for non traditional defense technology
companies to survive and thrive because we need more. Right,
we can't just have five primes that control everything. We
need the primes to survive. They're always going to be there,
but we need a more diverse ecosystem of defense technology
(36:21):
companies if we are going to have a hope of
deterring China from invading Taiwan, as well as simultaneously going
after terrorist in the Middle East and the other threat actors,
we have to deal with.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
What you just said I think is important and also
to me connects with your editorial in the Wall Street Journal,
which is about the importance of truth and the commitment
to fact. When you see so much of what's going
on in America today and around the world, whether it's
celebrating the United Healthcare CEOs killer, whether it is down
in Frisco, Texas, Carmelo Anthony stabs a seventeen year old
(36:56):
in the heart and raises four hundred thousand dollars. As
you just mentioned, so many of these elite institutions out
there had people marching in favor of the perpetrators of
October seventh. Why are we having such a difference. This
is a big philosophical question, But why do you think
we're having such a challenge, especially going into the Holy
(37:18):
week of good and evil recognizing them and being willing
to stand on the side of good.
Speaker 7 (37:24):
Well, I do think, you know, to really take it,
make it biblical, and maybe betray my Catholic perspective. I
do think as religion has retreated in terms of its
role in American life, people have sought out other gods,
and in some ways, politics or you know, a political
tribe can become a cult and still kind of a
(37:46):
God shaped whole in people's hearts. And I think correspondingly,
there's also this epistemological crisis that we have in America
where people no longer trust any source of information. Right Like,
we have this very bald organized media landscape where nobody
really knows where to go to get truth. And the
risk of that is people can kind of opt in
(38:07):
to whatever reality they just want to live in, and
it's very hard to have a coherent conversation based on facts,
based on logic. As a result that being said, you know,
as a product of representing northeast Wisconsin, where we're going
to host the NFL drafts here shortly by the way
everybody I'll watching.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
I'm very excited.
Speaker 7 (38:28):
It's a huge, huge thing for Green Bay, Wisconsin, a
huge thing, you know. I think most people are just
common sense, right there was this revolution of common sense
that President Trump talked about. I mean, people were afraid
initially to speak their minds, you know, particularly in COVID.
But people started to see what was happening to our
kids with schools being shut down, was happened to our
(38:50):
loved ones who were being locked up, and they thought,
this doesn't make any sense. So I do have this
abiding faith in the common sense of the American people
right now. They're demanding change and reform in the basic
institutions of government. I think Trump is an instrument for
that change. It can be very disruptive at times, that's
what the American people want. So we have to get
back to that. And at the end of the day,
(39:12):
like we have to realize, of course, America is not perfect,
but we're the good guys, right We are the greatest
country in human history. That comes with a great responsibility.
But the rest of the world is looking to us
for leadership to leave with courage. If you remember when
China took over Hong Kong and hundreds of thousands of
people came out into the streets to protest. What were
they waving? They were waving American flags, right. They were
(39:34):
looking to us as an example for a free society,
and that's something we all have a duty to maintain.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Well said, have a good Holy Week and weekend, and
we'll talk to you again, hopefully soon. Encourage people to
go check out that editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
Thanks Jav
The Team forty seven podcast is sponsored by Good Ranchers
Making the American Farm Strong Again.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Team forty seven with Clay and Buck starts.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Now wanted to give credit to Bill Maher who, being
willing to go actually meet with President and Trump in person.
He had a dinner with Kid Rock at the in
the White House after I believe they went into the
Oval Office as well, and I want to play some
of the cuts. This is from Bill Maher's HBO show,
(00:33):
and I think what Bill Maher is saying here is
what many of you have found in your experience is
either listening to Trump on this program or other programs
over the last decade. I believe the number is that
I have been involved in interviewing Trump, either by myself
or with Buck Now eleven times, and so I feel
(00:56):
like I know Trump fairly well at this point. We've
talked to him hours on this program during the course
of the last four years. And what Bill Maher is
saying is what I have found to be true of
Trump in private. He's an incredibly likable, charismatic guy who
frankly feels kind of like a grandpa when I have
(01:19):
been around him. And let's listen to a couple of
these cuts. He also has, and I think this is important,
a pretty good sense of humor. He's actually very, very funny,
and most of his critics don't get it. Here's Bill
Maher saying he showed up with a list of insults
that Trump had called him, and Trump autographed it for him,
(01:42):
which is incredible. Listened to cut fifteen.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Before I left for the Capitol. I had my staff
collect and print out this list of almost sixteen different
insulting epithets that the President has said about me, things
like stupid, dummy, low life, dummy, sleeves bag six said,
stone cold crazy, really a dumb.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Guy, fired like a dog. His show is dead.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Six.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I brought this to the White House because I wanted
him to sign it.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Which he did, which he did with good humor.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
All Right, I mean, this is how it should be.
I talked about the Taylor Lorenz. Oh he's a morally
good man. That's not how it should be. How it
should be is people can disagree, sometimes they might even
say mean things, but when they meet face to face
they behave like adults. And most of the time I
(02:46):
have found when you meet someone face to face, you
are more likely to like them, particularly when it's someone
like Donald Trump that is actually very likable. We've said
on this program for a long time. Look, you can
disagree with his policies. I am one hundred percent of
the opinion that you can look at Trump's policies and
you can say I hate the terrify ideas. You can say, hey,
(03:07):
I think we should have free and wide open borders.
You can say police are too empowered, or he's taking
too much executive authority. I don't agree with those arguments,
but I think you can make those arguments and be
a rational, normal human being. What you can't say is
he's Hitler. He's not in any way remotely similar to
(03:29):
Adolf Hitler. Disagree with his policies, attacking him personally is absurd.
And what I have said for some time is, and
I bet what Bill Maher now recognizes. Trump is an
energy person. Whatever energy you give to him, he gives
back to you ten x. So if you are favorable
(03:49):
and kind, he's going to be ten times as favorable
and ten times as kind to you. If you are unfavorable, uncharitable, cruel, mean,
he's going to get give that back to you ten x.
Whatever you give, Trump gives back ten x. That's the
lesson that everybody should have learned by now. And actually,
(04:10):
face to face, he tends to be really good. I've
said this before I met Trump for the first time
in person in October of twenty twenty. I took my
wife and at the time oldest son, who was I
believe in seventh grade.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Trump was unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
With him, unbelievable with my seventh grader in the Oval
Office the time he spent with him, he was just
a fabulous, grandfatherly like figure. My wife, like a lot
of women, was not a huge fan of Donald Trump
before she met him. After meeting him in the Oval Office,
(04:51):
since she's met him a couple of times since, she
loves him. He is really incredible face to face one
on one, not only with the people there, but with kids.
Really really good with kids. He's met all of my sons,
by the way, they were more interested in meeting mister
Beast than the President. No offense to the President, but
(05:15):
he's met all of my kids. Fabulous with all of them,
just like a good grandpa would be. And I bet
if you had the good fortune to get to meet
the president and you got to meet him with your
kids or with your grandkids. He would be phenomenal with them.
And this is what Bill Maher is saying. Bill maher
like kind of built this mountain of Trump as an
(05:36):
awful person based on public persona, and then he had
to go out and tell his audience on Friday. Actually
we had a phenomenal dinner and Trump was incredible. Here
is Bill maher on meeting Trump, cut sixteen.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
He laughs just.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
For starters, he laughs. I'd never seen him laugh in public,
but he does, including it himself, and it's not fake.
Believe me, as a comedian of forty years, I know
a fake laugh when I hear it. Okay, example, in
the Oval office, he was showing me the portraits of
presidents and he pointed to Reagan and said, in all seriousness,
(06:13):
you know the best thing about him his hair. I said, well,
there was also that whole bringing down communism thing. Waiting
for the button next to the diet coke button to
get pushed and I go through the trap door. But no,
he laughed.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
He got it. He has a really good sense of humor.
He's also insanely self aware. Some of you may have
seen me on Fox and friends over the weekend. I'll
take feedback by the way, eight hundred two two eight
a two. I'll tell you what my mom said in
a moment. But I said this because we were playing
some of the cuts.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
From the moment.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Jimmy Fallon allowed himself to get bullied humanizing Trump. Every
comedian by and large was terrified of the general public,
and they refuse to treat Trump like a normal human being.
It's actually incredibly unfortunate because if you go back and
watch Trump on Saturday Night Live, he has a great
(07:18):
sense of humor. I think Trump would have been really
good on Jimmy Kimmel. I think he would have been
really good with Fallan. I think he would have been
really good with Stephen Colbert and on Saturday Night Live,
because unlike a lot of politicians, he actually has a
good sense of humor about himself. And I have made
this argument for a long time on the dictator front.
(07:42):
Dictators don't have good senses of humor because humor requires
a knowledge and nuance of how you are seen in
the world that is at large. And that's why dictators
require complete obsequious business. They require that you basically bend
(08:02):
the need to them all the time that you genuflect
at their photo that's hanging on the wall, at their portrait,
because they have to be seen as larger than you,
more important than you, and comedy cuts everybody down to size.
This is why having kids important in many ways. I
think kids tell you exactly what they think. Kids and
(08:27):
old people, super old people, they are like, I don't
give a heck anymore. Super young kids they don't have
the filters built in to say what they think.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I remember.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I mean, there's tons of things that kids will say,
but I remember my three year old got me good
about seven years ago, the youngest at that time.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
We were playing.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
He said, Dad, he said, yeah, said, you have old hands.
I never thought about my hands in my entire life,
holding them up now for you on video. I was like,
what do you mean. He's like, they're wrinkly, they're like
old man hands. And I was like, I'd never even
thought about what my hands looked like before. I didn't
think I was George Costanza hand model. But my three
(09:12):
year old is like, you know, like, hey, Dad, you
know you're not a super young guy anymore. You got
old guy hands. And it's that puncturing, right, and I'll
play you a cut and a little bit of Trump
on Air Force one after he was at the UFC
three fourteen with Kai Trump, his granddaughter. The grandkids make
(09:32):
fun of him. That's healthy. Yeah, he's the president of
the United States, but he's also grandpa and grandma, and
he and Milanya, and so they have normal human interactions.
I don't imagine that Kim Jong un has very many
normal interactions. I frankly don't imagine that Vladimir Putin has
(09:53):
very many normal human interactions. Maybe I'm wrong, but this
is what Bill Maher was getting at here. Also, he
says Trump was gracious and measured, and his audience is
hearing what is the truth. But much like when I
was talking about earlier with George Clooney and the play,
they aren't able to see the larger perspective because many
(10:13):
of them have bought into the idea that he's Hitler.
Listen to cut fourteen.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
He said, you know, I've heard from a lot of
people who really liked that we're having this dinner.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Not all, but a lot.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And I said same. A lot of people told me
they loved it, but not all, and we agreed. The
people who don't even want us to talk. We don't
like you don't talk as opposed to what writing the
same editorial for the millionth time and making twenty five
hour speeches into the wind. Okay, that's my report. You
(10:45):
can hate me for it, but I'm not a liar.
Trump was gracious and measured. And why he isn't that
in other settings I don't know, and I can't answer,
and it's not my place to answer. I'm just telling
you what I saw, and I wasn't high.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
It's great and that audience.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Again, I encourage as many of these outreaches as Trump
can do.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
I think if you meet him.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Face to face, the caricature that you have built in
your mind on the left is not represented by the
man that you will meet. I guarantee you that. And
we have a tendency in this world, and I try
to be conscious of it in the way that I
talk to to build twenty foot tall caricatures of people
(11:34):
that are just a few inches deep. In other words,
when you walk up to it, it's like you can
punch through it and it's paper mache. It looks like
this huge statue. Oh my goodness, look at this. This
is twenty feet tall. You can't miss it, and then
when you're actually confronted with it, you realize there's no
(11:54):
depth to it. You can punch right through it and
you see the real person on the other side. Now,
some people are fake. Many politicians, I would say, are
fake because they're desperate.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
To make you like them.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
They feel like if they pretend to be something, that
you will like them. Trump is not that. It's why
he wasn't a professional politician. He is just himself, for
better or worse. And I think the reason why he
had so much more support by twenty twenty four is
a lot of people saw what Bill Maher did, which
(12:32):
is that twenty foot caricature that the legacy media were
telling you that he's Adolf Hitler, that he's got the
Hitler mustache, that he's gonna it's not real. It wasn't
in any way accurate. And meanwhile, the twenty foot caricature
that they tried to create of Joe Biden, which was
incredibly beneficial, when you got up close to it, you
saw that that was all fake too. And I've said
(12:55):
in my new book that I'm writing, I think this
gets to the essence of it. Author authenticity ends cancel culture.
When you are the authentic version of yourself, for better
or worse, you can't be canceled in public anymore because
people are over it now. If you lie, if you
(13:19):
are fake, if you are not honest with your audience,
then you can be canceled. And I'll give you an
example that just as historic. Why did Bill Clinton keep
his job after he had an affair with an intern
in the Oval office? Bill Clinton slept with an intern.
(13:40):
Now you can say, okay, well that was nineteen ninety six,
nineteen ninety seven, it's a different era.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
And I think that's true.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
But the reason why I think he kept his job
was because, deep down, a lot of people kind of
thought that that was something that Bill Clinton might do.
You didn't really think, oh, this is a guy who's
completely committed to his wife. You didn't think Bill and
Hillary Clinton, this is the greatest couple of our lives.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
You kind of thought.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Bill Clinton not really that much into Hillary Clinton. He's
probably going to sleep with somebody else while he's president.
I think if George W. Bush had done, it might
have cost him his job. I think if Barack Obama
had done, it might have cost him his job. But
Bill Clinton, it actually reflected in some way what we
anticipated and believed about him. I think Clinton was authentically himself.
(14:36):
I think Al Gore, who tried to replace him, wasn't.
I think George W. Bush was. Trump is what you
would think he is if you are honest and have
been seeing all of the coverage surrounding him. I think
what Bill Maher experienced, it's what I've experienced, it's what
Buck experienced, It's what most of you would experience. If
(14:59):
you had the eyes opportunity to meet Trump, and if
you took your kids or grandkids to meet Trump too,
I'm telling you you would really like him and.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
He would be fabulous with you.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
That I believe is one reason that he's been so
successful as a politician. He's actually just kind of a
likable guy. And if you remember before he got into politics,
that was his reputation. A little bit of a bragger,
a little bit in love with himself. Yeah, you can
say that about Trump. I was just playing one of
(15:31):
the West Palm Beach and he had framed that he
was one of the richest people in the world. In
the locker room, all the different paintings and pictures hanging
on the wall. I think a lot of rich people
probably wouldn't frame the magazine cover that called them one
of the richest people in the world and hang it
up in their locker room. But that's Trump, and I
(15:54):
think the reason why he's having so much more success
in this second term is more and more people are,
like Bill Moore, are finding out what the truth is well,
tax filing deadline for the i r S. Good for
him for meeting, Good for Trump for meeting. Thank you
to Kid Rock Dana White for setting it up. I
think we need way more of this.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You're listening to Team forty seven with Clay and Buck.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
Attorney General Ken Taxton of the state of Texas he
joins us now from Dallas, and mister Attorney General Paxston.
Appreciate you calling in, sir.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Hey, glad to be on. I appreciate you having me on.
You's gonna be a fun, fun, fun year coming up.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Can I We know you've announced your Senate run and
so that's that's a very you know, very very exciting
for you and your team that you're going to be
You've thrown your hat on the ring for that.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
I want to talk to you more about that.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
In the meantime, though, I thought perhaps you could just
give us your perspective if if a state attorney general
is involved in multiple mortgage frauds, if that is found
to be true, shouldn't that state attorney general. I'm sure
you're familiar with what's going on in New York and
Attorney General Letitia James and the allegations that are out
there right now. Aren't you, Attorney General Packson held to
(17:05):
a higher standard as a chief law enforcement officer in
your state, and shouldn't that be the case in New
York as well?
Speaker 6 (17:12):
Well? Certainly not necessarily a higher standard, but she had
to be held to the standard that everybody else is,
which is, if she's violating the law, she should be
held accountable for that, and if she's committed a crime,
she should be prosecuted for that. And obviously that would
affect her ability to continue as Attorney General of New York.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
A lot of discussion. Well, first of all, let's allow
you to tell our audience, who may not have heard otherwise,
you have had a lot of success in Texas electoral
politics already. You've won a lot of battles, You've fought
a lot of battles. People have coming after you aggressively,
and you are going to be running now for the
Senate from Texas that is next year, but the process
(17:54):
is underway. Wins the primary, what do you expect it
to look like? And for people out there that may
not have been familiar with you in the past, why
are you the right choice?
Speaker 6 (18:04):
So the primary is the first to DMR. So we're,
you know, approximately ten and a half months away from
the primary. And obviously John corn is our current center,
been there for twenty three years, going on twenty four.
He'd like to state thirty. For one, I think that's
too long. And for two, I don't feel like he's
done a good job representing our people. I don't think
(18:27):
he's done a good job. And I think there is
it's time for a change. So that's why I'm running.
There's a lot of issues that I'm frustrated I think
our voters are frustrated with and it takes a lot
of effort to win a statewide race in Texas. You
need name ID, you need money, and they've just start
that many people that have the name ID or the
ability to raise funds that can go against the sitting incumbent,
(18:51):
especially in the state of Texas, which.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
We may have just lost him there for a sec
want to make sure he get his cell phone. He's
in Dallas right now, he's begun the campaign, and he
was just laying out buck what is going to be
probably I think it's fair to say the biggest Republican
primary battle in twenty twenty six anywhere in the country.
John Cornyn, who has been in office for some time,
(19:18):
current sitting Texas Senator, and Ken Paxton, who is the
Attorney General right now of Texas, very well known. But
I wanted you guys to hear from him exactly the
choice that he was making is going to be a big, expensive,
huge battle.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
He just laid it out. March him next year.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
So let me ask you, just Attorney General Paxston, because
this this is going to be a primary a lot
of people spend time thinking about and involved in. Will
be a lot of dollars and for anyone who's listening,
I just want to be clear we will because we
don't endorse in primaries. We will have an invite out
to Senator Cornyn as well so he can make his case.
But Attorney General Paxton, where have you broken with Cornyn
(19:59):
on a ma your issue and what you said that
you're not you don't agree with some of the positions
he's taken and some of what he's done to represent
the state of Texas. Can you give us some example
so we can just start to understand what the differences
are between the two of you.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
Sure, I'll give you a couple of examples. First was
his push for the gun restrictions that he was able
to pass with the encouragement of Joe Biden. And he
was able to do that, restricting gun ownership rights, very
unpopular position in Texas and particularly in the primary issue
might imagine, and I remember after it was done that
(20:32):
Donald Trump came out and called them rhino and President
Biden congratulated him on doing a great job. That will
never happen with me. You will never see me congratulated
by a president like Joe Biden. Another issue that he's
been very, very bad on is the border. He's criticized
Trump's building of the wall over and over. He said
negative things about it and not wanting to do it.
(20:54):
He's insinuated that he would be for amnesty. Those are
both very unpopular positions in Texas, where a border stays.
We need all the protection we can get, not less.
And then, of course he's been he's not been a
fan of President Trump. In twenty sixteen, he called President
Trump and albatross around our neck, and in twenty twenty
four he said he was not endorsing President Trump, that
we should go, we should move on, and that he
(21:16):
also insinuated that President Trump had committed crimes and potentially
should be held accountable for this time. So those are
three of the issues that are I think are important
to our voters, and I think those are distinguished very
much distinguished me from him.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
So let's dive into this in particular, you just mentioned
President Trump. I think he won the state of Texas
by twelve fourteen points. You probably know the exact margin,
but it wasn't close. I'm assuming that, if he hasn't already,
that he is going to be endorsing you pretty wholeheartedly
for this office, given that you have worked quite a
lot with Trump when it comes to the border, when
(21:56):
it comes to legal related issues, how effective do you
think you would be working with Trump in twenty twenty
seven if you're able to hold that right hand up
and become the next Senator from Texas.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
Yeah, certainly the endorsement is up to him. I don't
presume anything, but I will say this, I've had a
great working relationship with President Trump from almost the day
he got into office. I didn't know him, but we
went back and forth on many many issues while he
was in his first term. I've kept in touch with
him since then during the times he was out of office,
and have been a big sport. As matter of fact,
(22:30):
I was one of two elected officials that showed up
at mar A Lago. The other was Troyonell's Congressman Troynell's
that actually showed up when he announced, because if you'll
remember when he announced, there was a lot of issues
swirling about his legal issues. A lot of Republicans were
keeping their distance because DeSantis was on the move, and
I was there with Troynelle because one knew I knew
the President trub would do a great job. And two,
(22:53):
you know, I'm loyal to people that I trust and
I believe in.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Speaking of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, he is going
to be running for a Senate seat against the incumbent there,
John Cornyn, and A. G.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Paxton.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
I wanted to lean on your legal expertise if I
could for a second, how do you assess this? This
uh back and forth?
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Right?
Speaker 5 (23:17):
The media is completely drilled into now this mister Abrago Garcia,
who is being currently held in El Salvador. Just I
wanted to just hear what you think about all of
the uh, the objections that are coming from some people
about the process, the judge that's involved, what you think
(23:37):
should happen. You know, you handle these kinds of decisions
as a as an attorney general for our second biggest state.
What do you think about what's going on here?
Speaker 6 (23:47):
Well, I think this judge across the line, this is
a this is the executive branch, so he's the judge
is a crossed We're all about separation of powers. Is
Justiary's supposed to be the weakest branch, and they are
supposed to stay out of the legislative side, and they're
supposed to say, out of the executive side. This judge
has clearly stepped into the shoes of the executive role
(24:08):
and taking control of the situation. I think that's wrong
and I think that needs to stop. I think Congress
needs to act and stop these nationwide injunctions that aren't
based in any fact or law, and we certainly there's
I think there are narrow cases that we use against
Joe Biden when it was a nationwide issue, that this
one is clearly in the purview of the executive and
(24:31):
this judge just needs to be stopped.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
How has life in Texas changed since Joe Biden left office?
Trump came in in particular when it comes to the border.
We talk about it on the program because basically the
border has ceased to be an issue at all. It
is now secure. What does that look like? What does
it feel like in Texas?
Speaker 6 (24:52):
It's I mean, I think people are excited, they feel safer.
The costliness of it has gone down. Obviously for US,
we a lot of expense from law enforcement, health, insurance,
all kinds of different issues. Education, that's our cost. And
the Celler government never stepped in. Even though they were
inviting these people in and working with the cartels to
(25:13):
get them across the border, they were not helping us financially,
and so it's a huge relief to us. And obviously
our legislatures spent billions of dollars trying to protect the
border in lieu of the Biden administration doing just the opposite.
So it has a tremendous financial impact, but it's also
I think people just feel safer knowing that we have
a president that's protecting our order.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We're number one in Austin, off and on, We're number
one in San Antonio, off and on. We are number
one in Houston, off and on. I say off and
on because on a weekly, monthly basis things can evolve.
But we have monster audience across the entire state of Texas,
and we appreciate all of you listening right now. We're
also newly on in Dallas, which is where I think
you are right now. When you look at this March
(25:58):
primary that is coming up next year, I know the
answer is everywhere in terms of where will this race
be decided, but in particular what areas? What has turnout
look like a lot of times people don't show up
necessarily in big numbers for primaries.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
What does it take for you to beat.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
An incumbent senator who certainly is going to have a
lot of money as well? Well.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
I mean, we've already done three polls with three different polsters.
I did one with Trump's polster that had me up
by twenty five. I did one with Ted Cruiz's bolster
that has me twenty five, and we did a third
one just to make sure it's twenty seven. So the votors,
I mean a lot of it's already baked in. They
know John Corny's been an officer for over forty years.
They know me. I've been in office for in the
Attorney General's office for eleven years now, and so I
(26:42):
think the primary voters are really educated. I feel very
strongly that we are going to do well everywhere, and
it's it's all based on record, and he's going to
have to spend the seaton. His record is not what
the voters want. He's not going to be talking about
his record. He's not going to be talking about mine,
because my record is a record that the voters like.
(27:03):
He's going to be going negative personally. That's that's his
a lot of attack, and he's got to pray that
somehow Trump does not that he endorses him, because that
would be his only way of getting into the game,
and he's still going to lose.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Do you think it's possible he drops out, decides not
to run.
Speaker 6 (27:21):
Look, I don't presume anything, he says he's running I'm playing.
I'm playing this for you know. I'm going to run
against John Corny, So that would be a great question
for him. I'm sure no matter what he's thinking in
his head, it's got across his mind. If he's that
far down, he's pulled that he knows that he's behind
by double digits. And look, I've been to the Republican conventions.
The last time he spoke that he dared to speak
(27:43):
to the Republican voters, that was three years ago. He
got booed for thirty straight minutes. And I'm not talking
to quiet boos. I'm talking loudly booed for thirty minutes.
And that was all based on what he did with
the restrictions on on gun ownership in our state.
Speaker 7 (27:57):
Tourney.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
General Packson, appreciate you being with us, sir. Best luck
to you. We'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
Hey, have a great day. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
You're listening to Team forty seven with Clay and Buck.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
We are joined now by Mike Gallagher. He is head
of defense at Palentier. He's got a really interesting piece
in the Wall Street Journal Time for Accountability on the
COVID lab leak cover up? Mike, appreciate you making the
time for us.
Speaker 7 (28:23):
What's an honor to be with you.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Let's just jump into it. You got into this in
your piece. What does accountability look like? What does the
public need to know? What steps have to be taken?
Now when it comes to the lab leak cover up?
I see, I love that there's a picture of Fauci
touching a little fake virus in your op ed.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
He's the absolute worst. What needs to happen.
Speaker 7 (28:47):
Well, I can't claim credit for the artwork that comes
with these op eds. I just do the words. But
it was it was quite nice to me. It just
starts with the basic step of complete declassification of relevant
and intelligence. If you remember, we actually passed the law
when I was in Congress requiring that the Biden administration
do just that, but they didn't comply with the law.
(29:09):
When they finally did an investigation into the origins of COVID,
it was not serious. What came out was heavily redacted.
It was a regurgitation of the prevailing consensus. And so
there's been no accountability for our own scientific establishment, which
was profoundly corrupted. Our own intelligence community was parroting the
(29:29):
corrupted consensus of the scientists, and even the authors of
the proximal Origins article, which spread a lot of this
misinformation have not been held accountable. If the opposite has happened,
they continue to get awards. Fauci continues to be lauded,
and we have centers named after Fauci. And without that
basic step of accountability, people just aren't going to trust
(29:51):
the government. They're not going to trust the health institutions,
the scientific institutions, and therefore were less prepared to prevent
a future pandemic. So I think accountabilit all these starts
with getting the information out there, even if it's super
embarrassing to the government. Agencies that allow tax dayer dollars
to be fundled, funneled to corrupt nonprofits like the Eco
(30:12):
Health Alliance and wind their way into the hands of
the Luhan Institute of Virology, there's been no accountability thus far.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That's why I read your piece and I appreciate you
coming on with us. I know how busy you are
in your new job, and we'll talk about that maybe
in a moment, but trump for people who do not know,
I encourage you to go to COVID dot gov today
and look at everything that's being laid out there. We're
five years after COVID, and Buck and I focus on
(30:42):
this a lot because we're kind of history nerds, and
one of the good things about time passing is over time,
history I like to think becomes more honest about what
really transpired. Are you optimistic that twenty forty years from
now will get a more honest version of what happened
(31:02):
and the failures of this nation when it comes to
responding to COVID in generations ahead? Or do you think
the same people that are trying to stop us now
will continue to fight for generations into the future to
avoid acknowledging how wrong they were.
Speaker 7 (31:18):
Well, I would only say I don't think we have twenty,
let alone forty years right. We had a report a
few months ago that in February, researchers that the will
had Ince Vivirology had experimented with a new bat coronavirus
that looked a lot similar to COVID nineteen. What you
learn is you sort of dig into the nature of
what happened in Muhan, but lab accidents more broadly is
(31:40):
that these are actually more common than we realize, and
so part of the push for accountability is based on
the idea that the risks of a pandemic like the
one we went through with COVID nineteen or with one
that could be far worse if a future virus were
just as pathenogenic or more lethal. Rather, those risks have
(32:02):
not gone down. We haven't learned any lessons, and so
we need accountability on a year timeline, not a twenty
year time which is why I was very glad to
see that President Trump launched his website. I would encourage
all Americans to go to the website right now and
really lays out five basic common sense truths that the
government heretofore has not acknowledged. One the virus possessed biological
(32:25):
characteristics that you couldn't find in nature. To all the
data suggests it stems from a single introduction into humans,
not multiple spillovers like previous pandemics. Three, That the Wuhan
Institute had conducted gain to function research at an adequate
safety levels, or that the researchers at the Wuhan It's
Too fell ill with COVID months before the virus was
(32:46):
allegedly discovered at a web market and finally, after all
these years, there's no scientific evidence of a natural origin
that has surfaced. That alone has done more to advance
the case of accountability than under four years of President Biden.
So we need to press the gas. We need to
hold our own agencies accountable, and again we need to
declassify all the relevant information.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
Mike, I wanted to pivot a little bit here and
lean into another area of expertise, something you're dealing with
day in and day out now as head of Defense
at Palenteer Technologies. I think one of the lessons that
anybody paying attention to what's going on over in Ukraine
with Russia, and especially if they're looking ahead at the
possibility at some point in the future of some kind
(33:28):
of hot conflict with China, is technology is going.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
To be absolutely critical.
Speaker 5 (33:33):
We're looking at drones, We're looking at a future of
telecommunications and high speed computing making decisions on the battlefield.
That is truly the stuff of sci fi from not
long ago, and it's it's becoming reality now every day.
But with that said, I know Palenteers involved in the
high tech edge of things with defense.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
It wasn't long.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Ago where Google was upset there was like an uprising
at good Google over the prospect of doing anything that
helped the United States Pentagon, right, like as if Silicon
Valley was its own little thief toom that did not
actually become or was not actually a part of the
United States. Do you feel like that is changing now?
(34:15):
Do you feel like there's an understanding that companies that
are US based, that employee Americans have a role in
defense and that means that they should take a patriotic
position on Yeah, we will work with the United States Pentagon.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
I think it is changing. I mean Google has actually
recently changed its position. And if you remember at the time,
the reason so many of us got upset when Google
abandoned Project Maven is they were simultaneously trying to work
with China AI exactly an AI center in Beijing. It
was substantly revealed there was a project that they did abandon,
but a project they were exploring to censor Internet search
(34:52):
in China. So the message was, well, We're cool working
with a genocidal communist regime, but not with the American military,
because the American military occasionally has to do things like
kill Salacity Jahadis in order to keep America safe, and
so into the brief steps Talenteer, which was unapologetic in
its belief that America is the greatest country in the
(35:13):
history of the world, that we should have the most
lethal military in the world, and that some folks, be
they terrorists or other bad guys, need to be killed occasionally.
And I do think what we're seeing on the battlefield
in Ukraine is forcing people to re examine their previously
held assumptions. There's a lot of capital in the venture
capital community that is trying to flow into defense technology companies.
(35:35):
And finally, I would say not to talk to my
own book, but when you have a company like Palenter
that spent two decades trying to survive the so called
Valley of Death because it isn't easy for a defense
technology company to succeed because the Pentagon can be a
difficult customer, it proves to other companies that are trying
to do the same that it's possible to survive, it's
possible to go public, it's possible to have a mission
(35:59):
focused company that also is successful financially, which is why
we founded something called the First Breakfast Initiative, which is
designed to make it easier for non traditional defense technology
companies to survive and thrive because we need more. Right,
we can't just have five primes that control everything. We
need the primes to survive. They're always going to be there,
but we need a more diverse ecosystem of defense technology
(36:21):
companies if we are going to have a hope of
deterring China from invading Taiwan, as well as simultaneously going
after terrorist in the Middle East and the other threat actors,
we have to deal with.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
What you just said I think is important and also
to me connects with your editorial in the Wall Street Journal,
which is about the importance of truth and the commitment
to fact. When you see so much of what's going
on in America today and around the world, whether it's
celebrating the United Healthcare CEOs killer, whether it is down
in Frisco, Texas, Carmelo Anthony stabs a seventeen year old
(36:56):
in the heart and raises four hundred thousand dollars. As
you just mentioned, so many of these elite institutions out
there had people marching in favor of the perpetrators of
October seventh. Why are we having such a difference. This
is a big philosophical question, But why do you think
we're having such a challenge, especially going into the Holy
(37:18):
week of good and evil recognizing them and being willing
to stand on the side of good.
Speaker 7 (37:24):
Well, I do think, you know, to really take it,
make it biblical, and maybe betray my Catholic perspective. I
do think as religion has retreated in terms of its
role in American life, people have sought out other gods,
and in some ways, politics or you know, a political
tribe can become a cult and still kind of a
(37:46):
God shaped whole in people's hearts. And I think correspondingly,
there's also this epistemological crisis that we have in America
where people no longer trust any source of information. Right Like,
we have this very bald organized media landscape where nobody
really knows where to go to get truth. And the
risk of that is people can kind of opt in
(38:07):
to whatever reality they just want to live in, and
it's very hard to have a coherent conversation based on facts,
based on logic. As a result that being said, you know,
as a product of representing northeast Wisconsin, where we're going
to host the NFL drafts here shortly by the way
everybody I'll watching.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
I'm very excited.
Speaker 7 (38:28):
It's a huge, huge thing for Green Bay, Wisconsin, a
huge thing, you know. I think most people are just
common sense, right there was this revolution of common sense
that President Trump talked about. I mean, people were afraid
initially to speak their minds, you know, particularly in COVID.
But people started to see what was happening to our
kids with schools being shut down, was happened to our
(38:50):
loved ones who were being locked up, and they thought,
this doesn't make any sense. So I do have this
abiding faith in the common sense of the American people
right now. They're demanding change and reform in the basic
institutions of government. I think Trump is an instrument for
that change. It can be very disruptive at times, that's
what the American people want. So we have to get
back to that. And at the end of the day,
(39:12):
like we have to realize, of course, America is not perfect,
but we're the good guys, right We are the greatest
country in human history. That comes with a great responsibility.
But the rest of the world is looking to us
for leadership to leave with courage. If you remember when
China took over Hong Kong and hundreds of thousands of
people came out into the streets to protest. What were
they waving? They were waving American flags, right. They were
(39:34):
looking to us as an example for a free society,
and that's something we all have a duty to maintain.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Well said, have a good Holy Week and weekend, and
we'll talk to you again, hopefully soon. Encourage people to
go check out that editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
Thanks Jav
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