A Feisty Republican Debate on Issues That Matter
(00:00.202)
Yeah, late night for me last night, stayed up and watched a debate and a feisty debate, I’d say a little bit of a feisty debate. And I’m going to be honest, I think that I was happy to see them covering various different issues, things that are actually important. And I do believe that it was a much more substantive debate that Donald Trump was not.
there but you know we’ll talk about that a little bit I want to go through right now various different topics that were covered now again inflation being one it’s interesting they do these man on the street interviews and polling and they talk to American people and what’s most important to everybody out there is what they’re spending what they’re spending on groceries what they’re spending on electricity what they’re spending on gasoline all of these things are incredibly
important. It was touched on. It was touched on yesterday. Quite frankly, you know, they didn’t delve into it deep enough. And I’m going to throw some shade at, you know, Brett Bear and Martha McCallum, who really should have followed up on this because it’s really what’s most important. You know, we’ve got to fundamentally teach the American people. And that was brought up too, is basically selling ideas.
to the American people and teaching them where you know, where does inflation come from? How is this possible? You know the fact that we’ve got this, you know ridiculous debt overhang deficits that are as far as the eye could see and You know again the feisty part was again You saw some of the candidates actually point out saying hey, you know, listen, I’m gonna give Vivek credit Okay pointing out the various different candidates. You guys have been here
You guys have been here. You voted for all of this damn spending. You allowed for all of this to take place. And good point. Good point. And he’s right. And I’ve talked about that before here on the program. And I left the Republican Party. You know, this middle part of Bush’s second term, I just got sick and tired.
(02:21.15)
Sick and tired of all the BS, sick and tired of the bridges to nowhere, all of the pork barrels spending, all of the entitlement. They brought all that stuff back. Republicans have bought all of that stuff back. Talk about all of these spending bills that they signed off on. I’m yelling and screaming about this. Late last fall, the omnibus spending bill.
where you get all the Republicans that, oh yeah, they gotta get their spending, they gotta send their money back to their districts. It’s disgusting. It really is. And this is why we’re paying these ridiculous prices. We cannot continue to print money like we have been. We cannot continue to have the government spend haphazardly. Again, I was glad to see this as well. And again, another shot to, you know, Vivek, also Ron DeSantis, you know, basically saying, hey, listen.
Give them this shot at Pence and the Trump administration. You hired what I’ve been saying. You hired Fauci. You kept him on. You were on the podium with Fauci every damn day because you couldn’t get enough damn TV time. You shut down the economy. You allowed for businesses to be wrecked. You allowed for all of this spending to take place. The buck stops with you, Donald. And I was glad that they pointed that out and good for Ron DeSantis in doing so.
So you saw that many of the candidates quite frankly, they weren’t ready or they weren’t willing to go there, which was unfortunate. Another topic that is obviously of great importance to Americans is the border and immigration. And I want to start off with the ridiculous. Christie was asked
about this and what he would do and what he would get done. And they were talking about, I think it was Martha McCallum asked him about, well, what about the tens of millions of people that are here already? And he’s like, well, we got people wanting to come here from all over the globe. And, you know, we’ve got to send all of these people back.
(04:30.054)
Yeah, you know, maybe if you had, you know, the infinity gauntlet from the Avengers and you could snap your fingers and make everybody go back to their home country, that might be possible. But in the real world, it isn’t. It isn’t possible. It’s not close to being possible. And again, this kind of delves into also, you know, some of the debates that they were having in regards to foreign policy.
The fact that you had Vivek and Ron DeSantis to some degree pushing back against this proxy war in the Ukraine and make no bones about it, it is a proxy war. I know you get the Wall Street Journal editorial board and all these people rah-rahing, oh this is something we’ve got to do. But Ramizwami was right, he was basically sticking it to some of the politicians up there. Their ties to some of these defense.
contractors. How is it not a proxy war that we’re fighting half ass? It’s like, it’s like, okay, another 20 billion here, another 15 billion here. Oh yeah, we authorize these tanks, but they haven’t been delivered. We authorize these airplanes, but they haven’t been delivered. Yeah, I know our allies in Europe, I know the Dutch, was it F-16s were supposed to be delivered? No, no, not until late 2024 they’re going to get those planes. I’m, what?
Again, what you’re seeing is this, what a proxy war is, is just like, hey, let’s just try to wear down the Russians as much as we can get them to spend and grind this meat grinder that needs to stop at some point in time. And that’s, you know, what, in my opinion, what real leadership is gonna take. Because you gotta, at some point in time, you have to put an end to this. Ramazami talked about Europeans, oh no, sorry, DeSantis talking about Europeans actually.
doing more. Ramaswamy was hitting on the fact that saying we’re spending all of this money there and we’re not spending it here at home. We’re not strong here at home. We’ve got a border that’s wide open that needs to be dealt with. And I think quite frankly, I think that resonates with many Americans. Yeah, I know you had the usual folks up there and
(06:52.394)
Putin is evil and Putin is a tyrant and Christie went on this long rant about eyes being gouged out and ears being cut off and kids being, you know, the usual thing where, yep, we’re America. America, we can do all this at the same time. Guess what? Maybe we could have, maybe we could have back in the day when we weren’t 30 plus trillion dollars in debt, but we are.
We are, we’re a bit hamstrung at this point in time. That’s just the reality. Hey, again, I remember, I don’t remember what member of the military, what joint chiefs talked about this years ago, our greatest national security concern is our debt. No, no, and again, Pence was talking about this too. We can do, it’s America, we can do everything. Well, sure.
Just keep printing, Mike. Just keep printing because we’re just, we’re sending billions everywhere. And again, we have issues with our foreign policy. There’s no doubt about it. It’s something that needs to be dealt with. In regards to, again, they spent some time talking about abortion, what happened with the repeal of
Roe versus Wade and I like what Doug Burgum had to say. I got like he pulled out his little pocket constitution that everybody should have and you know he pointed out saying hey listen I said you know you can’t have it two ways. You wanted this thrown back to the states and now you want it thrown back to the federal government and again I understood some of the points that Tim Scott talked about in regards to
abortion and the amount of time and you know, you know, can’t we come up with some sort of, you know, standard nationally? I get that. It’s a debate that needs to be had. But again, that needs to be explained to everyone that’s out there because this has been a major loser, major loser for the Republican Party since, you know, since it was repealed. Again, you can’t have it both ways. And, you know, you’re gonna let certain states decide
(09:19.582)
and what they’re going to do even, you know, despite the fact just how vile they might be. You know, Trump, I was glad to see that the candidates were just like, he’s not here. Okay. This has got to be about the issues of the day. You know, why do we need to discuss this? I know they’re pushed back saying, well, he’s leading in the polls. He’s actually throwing it back at DeSantis.
to some degree. He’s like, oh, he’s leading in the polls. And because he’s leading the polls, it’s something that we need to talk about. Again, what did they ask the question? They asked a question in regards to, would you vote for Donald Trump if he ends up getting the nomination? And I’m gonna be honest, that was a little, it was funny. It was, you saw hands go up kind of halfway. Vivek raised his hand high.
in the air and that’s something that I happen to disagree with him on. You know, I made that perfect. I’m not, you know, Trump gets a nomination. I’m not voting. I don’t care. I’m not voting for this guy again. I can’t vote for somebody that is not willing to lead on important issues, things that are, you know, right there in front of us like the national debt. I can’t vote for somebody that, you know, screwed up.
COVID as bad as he did. I can’t vote for somebody who still thinks that, you know, tariffs are the way to go when we’ve already got inflation running hot and it’s gonna make prices go up even further for America. I can’t vote for that. It doesn’t make any sense to me. But again, you saw the candidates up there kind of half, you know, some of them, you know, raising their hands, some, you know, half ass raising their hand that they’re gonna vote for Trump. I, I don’t know.
Again, I can’t see this country pulling out of the tailspin. If this is the case, I really can’t. One more thing I wanted to touch on. Oh, with immigration. Vivek, Vivek and this Vivek, he took my idea. I’ve been touting this idea for a very long period of time. The fact that,
(11:40.222)
it was not just immigration, it was education as well. Because again, that was another topic, talking about just how bad our schools are at this point in time. And the failure of our schools and the fact that Vivek brought up the same thing that I said, I said, you know what, you can’t vote unless you can pass a basic citizenship test. I’ve been talking about that for years and I’ve taken it much.
much further than Vivek. I don’t believe we should vote if you’re living on any sort of government assistance and getting handouts and giveaways. But if you can’t pass a basic citizenship test by the time you graduate high school, why in the world should you, we’re gonna let you vote? I mean, it’s not that hard. It really isn’t. It’s not that difficult. It’s something that even if you’re not a history buffer, you know, you can study for it, you know, for an hour or two in the afternoon and pass if you really want to. Not that hard.
So I did like that they said that, and again, talking about education and just how bad it’s been, again, tie this into ridiculous COVID lockdowns and what this has done and going after the teachers’ unions and how powerful they’ve become. Again, school choice is a big topic right now in this country, and I bet a lot of parents out there, they wanna be able to, and again, I’ve always been a follow the money guy. I said, you know,
the money follow the students around. You know, your district is gonna spend X amount of dollars per student. If the parent would rather not send them to the public school and rather send them to the local Catholic school, Jewish school, I don’t care, doesn’t make a difference to me. Charter school, let the money follow the kid. And then guess what? You get competition and you get schools competing against one another and competition breeds excellence. That’s the last thing in the world that the teachers
unions want at this point in time. Again, that’s another important topic here in this country. And again, kind of, you know, I guess where I was kind of, I’m sad, I’m realistic here. I don’t subscribe to the, you know, whole America, you know, number one and everything. No, we’re not number one. Yeah, we’re number one in a lot of bad things at this point in time. And
(14:03.33)
Again, I gotta hand it to Vivek. He pointed this out. Not afraid to point out the fact that we need a, we need to basically hit the reset button in many respects as far as our culture, as far as the society has come. Talked about his 10 commandments that he actually listed during his closing statement. And one of those things as well is the importance of the nuclear family and that being the most important, in essence,
talk of governmental unit that’s out there and you know actually pointed out saying you know the demise of the nuclear family, the giving more money to you know incentivizing single moms rather than having two parents in a household and again he’s not wrong and he’s actually coming out and
(15:02.078)
afraid to say. And again, that’s why I think he really did stand out. People are going to ask that, you know, who are your choices? Who do you think really stood out in the debate? I think Vivek did a great job. I think DeSantis had some really good points and he made some good statements, but he just doesn’t seem that comfortable.
up there. I wish that he would just, I don’t know who’s handling him. I know you do debate prep and all of this stuff. You know, sometimes you see people up there, it’s almost like they’re grasping for what their handlers told them, you know, how I should go about answering the question rather than just answering it. Be yourself. Be yourself.
Just go up there, there’s nothing wrong. If you know your material, just go up there and shoot from the hip. If you screw up from time to time, it’s gonna happen. You’re gonna be talking a lot on the campaign trail. I don’t like the whole pre-program crap. And again, you had Christie, obviously he was going after Trump, but he also had it in for Vivek and had a…
pre and it was an obviously pre prepared line saying that he sounds like chat GPT and I get a lot of people all he really roundhouse them there. Do you think that bothered the back in the slightest? Did anybody throw him off at all? And what was the other thing he was talking about compared for back to Barack Obama? He said, Oh, the last time we had somebody that was skinny up here with a funny name, it was he was Barack Obama.
I’m like, really? You know, last time I checked, you were running against Barack Obama too, Chris. And you got your ass kicked in the Republican debate where the Republicans decided to put up wet noodle, Mitt Romney, who got his butt kicked by Barack Obama. One of the worst run campaigns I’ve ever seen in my entire life next to John McCain. It’s how pathetic it was.
(17:15.614)
Nikki Haley, again, stupid one-liner that she had saved up and you knew it was obvious, the Margaret Thatcher line, but where she had some good points with certain things there, I cannot go along with her foreign policy. I really can’t. At some point in time, and again, Vivek pointed that out as well, forever wars, went back, talked about war on terror, Iraq, Vietnam.
pointed that out. I think people have had enough. Mike Pence, I’m trying to get through it all, people, I’m sorry. Mike Pence.
(17:57.066)
Yeah, he’s been there, he’s done that, and he played the whole rah America, we can do anything type of a situation. And again, I like to think that we could do everything, but if you’d like to do everything, you’ve obviously gotta get your, we obviously gotta get our shit together and our shit’s not together. And he can talk about, oh yeah, very proud of our record during the Trump administration.
How could you be proud of your COVID record? How could you be proud of all of the spending that you engaged in? I mean, I would, you know, I’d actually support the guy to a greater degree if it actually said we screwed up. I’m just the vice, and again, I’m the vice, I was just the vice president of the United States. I didn’t make these decisions even though, again, this is, you know, he was part of that COVID task force.
last time I checked, which was obviously an absolute disaster. An absolute disaster. Talking about clean up on aisle 12. We’re still cleaning up that mess. We’re going to be cleaning up that mess for a long, long time. So, you know, Pence, and then you got the guys that, quite frankly, Asa Hutchinson, almost like, you know, he fell out of Jeb Bush’s closet.
or something like that. He’s kind of like, you know, they remember there was a, Trump used to call him low energy Jeb. I mean, he says, I mean, he’s a serious man. He’s a swamp thing. I can’t even believe he’s running. Tim Scott, you know, I thought he was great. Very, very likable guy. Had some great points that were there. I just, I don’t see it. I don’t see it. You gotta kind of have to stake out a better, I guess a better claim.
if you know, if the lack of a better phrase in regards to it. And, you know, Bergham, you know, he can’t. He wasn’t great up there, but he’s a very accomplished guy and did make some good points. So do I think that some of these people could be helpful in, you know, an administration down the road? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Again, I’ll be disappointed at some point in time. You know, like I said, if Vivek wants to take that that.
(20:21.202)
next step, he’s going to eventually have to start taking on Donald Trump. And again, we’re going to kind of see, you know, where his true colors are. I love his points. I love his energy. I love the things that he’s saying. But unless he starts, you know, really going after Trump and differentiating himself from Trump, he talks about, you know, one of the things he said he would, pardon Donald Trump if he’s elected president, because he wants to help bring the country together. I think on the same thing, you’d probably have to, you know.
And I think he said this. I think he said he’s gonna pardon Trump, he’s gonna pardon Biden’s and just, you know, try to get over all of this nonsense. And there’s something to be said for that. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with it, but he’s gonna have to break away to some degree. You know, DeSantis is gonna have to, he’s gonna have to, gonna have to fire the consultants and all the people that are telling him what to do and just be yourself out there. But overall, let’s, we can, some,
There was some different, it was good to see the candidates on various different issues and you could see how they were different from one another. And I’m curious to see how this all comes out in the polls over the next couple of weeks. I didn’t pay attention. The only thing I got out of Donald Trump being on Tucker, I was reading about it this morning, is now he’s proposing some sort of 10%
tariff on anything that is made outside of the United States. 10% anything that’s made outside the United States he wants to slap a 10% tariff on and I’m saying to myself you know you really want to do this to countries that are our allies does it really make sense and do you really think you’re hurting those companies and countries or are you hurting the American people who are already paying high prices?
We dealt with this, tariff man. I was speaking with home builders who were paying ridiculous prices for siding for homes because it was coming from Canada and Trump slapped tariffs on that. So who paid for it? Did the companies pay for it or did Americans pay for it? And again, Trump can’t get that through his thick head. But I’ll go back and I’ll try to see what Trump had to say during his little Tucker Carlson thing.
(22:47.61)
Do I think that he wimped out? People are asking me that question. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. He wimped out and don’t give me, oh, you know, if you’re in my position you wouldn’t do it. No, no, no. If I was in your position, I’d still do it because again, I have a little courage of your convictions, belief in your ideals. If you believe in that, great. Go up there and go up there and have at it, there big guy. Anyway, Watchdog on WallStreet.com.
