- Joining us now is Senator JD Vance. Feels good to be able to say that. Senator, you made some news yesterday about holding up nominees. Tell us about it. - Yeah, the basic idea, Charlie, is that Merrick Garland is using the political appointments of the Department of Justice as foot soldiers in a war of politics instead of a law enforcement agency. That's exactly what he's turned the Department of Justice into. And so what we've decided to do is use the authority that the people of Ohio gave me as a United States Senator and use that to gum up the works a little bit and to say to Merrick Garland that we're gonna hold the nominations that you have to the Department of Justice until you commit your agency to the job of law enforcement and criminal prosecution, not of politics. That's something we're able to do. That's an action that I felt was important to take. And I've heard from a lot of people, Charlie, they're sick of us just complaining about this problem. They want us to take action. They recognize we can't stop everything. We can't stop every nominee, but we can at least make it a little bit harder for Merrick Garland to use the government agencies to go after his political opponents. That's exactly what we're trying to do. Charlie, I heard some of your commentary sort of in the lead into this. And I just wanna echo something that sort of, I think is getting missed in a lot of the conservative commentary on this particular indictment. There's a whole lot of argument that yes, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton committed the same alleged wrongdoing as Donald Trump. I think that grants way too much to the other side's argument here. They did not do the same thing that Donald Trump did because they didn't have declassification authority. The fundamental issue here, Charlie, is who controls the documents that's produced by our government? Who controls the information that flows through the executive department of our government? Is it the permanent unelected bureaucracy or is it the people's elected president? 'Cause if it's not the people's elected president, Article II of the Constitution is meaningless, and we do not have a real Republican form of government. We have an oligarchy controlled by the deep state. That is the real issue with this case. The deep state is jealously guarding its own documents. When those documents don't belong to them, they don't belong to anybody except for the American people through their elected president. - This is the best point, and this is how much I've missed Tucker. I mean, it's just when you see an expert, you see an expert. So Tucker last night has, I do this for a living and I'm still learning how to do it. And when I listened to Tucker, I say, "Oh my goodness, how did I not think about that?" 'Cause he just makes the points that are so obvious where Tucker broadens it. He says, "Everything's classified in DC." Like, of course, right? I mean, memos about Flag Day or Arbor Day, they over classify everything because they do believe in a secret gnosis or a secret knowledge or a secret cabal, and then they're able to broaden those statutes to, of course, not enforce the classified document that's handling against their friends. But if anybody they don't like comes in contact with the document, and then, of course, Tucker goes on with this brilliant point. You're trying to tell me Dick Cheney at Thanksgiving dinner wasn't talking about the, of course he was. I mean, you're trying to tell me that on his way to or from work, Bill Barr wasn't reading documents in the car. These are all violations of the Espionage Act. JD Vance, I think Tucker made the most important point, which is the essence of the thing, is that how dare you challenge the permanent administrative state? - That's exactly what's going on here, Charlie, and let's take this from the level of abstraction to sort of just throw out a hypothetical. Let's say that there are documents that show conclusively the role of the deep state in the Russia collusion hoax, which, of course, tried to take down the presidency of Donald Trump, had our entire government and media complex obsessed with a totally fake issue for a couple of years instead of solving the American people's problems. What those documents might show is, one, the exoneration of Donald Trump, but two, the deep corruption of our own administrative state. Who do you want to control those documents? The very people whose conduct they impugn, whose conduct they show is illegal, or do you want the elected president to be able to hold onto this stuff, to take it back to his house after he leaves office, and to make a political issue out of it? The craziest thing here, Charlie, is look, you know I'm a Trump guy, I know you support the president. If you don't think Trump should have taken those documents, fine. Make that argument, substantively criticize him, encourage people to vote against him. You don't throw the Article II president in prison for doing something that he's constitutionally empowered to do. - That's exactly right. - It's nuts. - Yes, and it is about the question of who is the sovereign. This is a constitutional question. This is a moral question. It's not about Donald Trump, it's not about his tweets. This is a big picture. Is the framework that was fought over and articulated in 1787 at the constitutional convention still valid? And by the way, we're long overdue for that answer to that question, because we've largely been living in a post-constitutional republic, and now this is the fork in the road. This is the question, does the administrative state run the country, or do the people run the country? Does the president run the government, or does the government run the president? And we shall see. - That's right. - Senator Vance, I wish we had more time. One final thought, please. We have 30 seconds. I'd just say, look, the founders created a powerful president of the United States, a president limited, of course, by certain things in the Constitution, limited in his power to declare war, limited in his power to levy taxes. We didn't want a dictator or a king, but they wanted a robust sovereign at the head of the federal government. What the deep state is trying to do is destroy the people's elected presidency, not just for Donald Trump or his voters, but for all time. If we don't stop this, Charlie, if we allow him to go to prison for declassifying documents, we're talking about paperwork here, we're gonna throw Donald Trump in jail for that. If we allow that to happen, we have the end of the constitutional republic in this country. (upbeat music)
Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.
AI Day Analysis
Machine-generated analysis of the 2023-06-16 posts below. Not written by their author.
Arraignment Aftershock: 26 Posts of Rage, Victimhood, and Retribution from Bedminster
Trump spent the day at his Bedminster estate in a sustained defensive reaction to his federal indictment three days earlier, firing off 26 posts across eleven hours. The morning opened with personal attacks on former chief of staff John Kelly and demands the DOJ withdraw charges, then erupted into a rapid-fire afternoon barrage mixing victimhood, rage, and sweeping promises of retribution against Biden. He repeatedly cast himself as America's persecuted defender while accusing the prosecution of election interference and threatening to weaponize the Justice Department against political opponents. The day closed with a pivot toward poll numbers and campaign messaging, but flashes of anger at Adam Schiff showed the wound remained open.