Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (12-22-2025--Hour3)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to dpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Happy Monday. Hope you out a fantastic weekend. I hope your day is going well. Thank you so much for being with us on this busy Monday. We're going to take some calls later this hour. Seven oh four, five seven oh one oh seven nine, seven oh four, five seven oh one oh seven nine. Again, I'm Tony Marino. Before we get further into that conversation about the Epstein files, I want to welcome in former White House Press Secretary, a guy that I like to say is my friend, Shawn Spicer. Shawn, great to talk to you again. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that. Thank you, Tony, thanks for having me back. Merry Christmas to you. So the last time that you and I spoke, because it's been a minute, as they say, And I was thinking about this. The last time you and I spoke, you had just played golf with then former President Donald Trump and we talked about his run to get back into the White House, and I remember you specifically said that if he wins reelection, you think that he would be able to get a lot more stuff done, because you know, he learned a lot in the first administration and he has, you know, a better grip on things that he would have a better grip on things now. And I would say you were absolutely right. Right, Yeah, Well, look the way I look at this is like for those people who have played sports before, if you play a team at the beginning of the season, you play him again later in the season, right, you know, Hey, I know where their weaknesses are. I know where we need to improve. I know the plays that work. And I think what President Trump did, I sum it into three things, tony, people, policy, and process. So he knows which people he wanted, you know, kind of more of meaning people who understood the agenda, the people who are committed to the America First agenda, and his policies. He knew what policies to promote, like immigration, border security, how to execute them, and then the process, how do I ensure that this time the deep states of bureaucracy, the opposition doesn't stop me. And in each one of those cases, you know, I just I think because of that, this is going to be the most consequential presidency in probably in history, but definitely in modern history. Because you know, if you're a consecutive which obviously every president except for one other has been in terms of their second term, you just keep going. So January twenty second to you know, the twenty first becomes the twenty second. The same chief of staff is there, the same people. You know, you keep moving down the field. When you actually go out of office and have time to stop and think, it makes a difference. Yeah, And during and during the first administration, the president changed out a lot of pieces of the puzzle, right, including you and a lot of other people. But you know, there there there There have been rumors about Cash Patel. There's been rumors about Pam Bondy after she has said that she had the Epstein files on her desk, but then she didn't. And I'm I'm really happy regardless of what people might think of the job those people are doing. I'm happy that he hasn't changed up any of the cabinet. Yet, well, look there's a big difference too. One of the things that the media loves to do is say, oh, he's surrounded himself with loyalists. Well, first of all, that's clearly not the case. But secondly, a dog can be loyal, right, it can just sit there in the corner and be loyal to you. What he's got is a bunch of disruptors. These are people. So for example, I'll give you a for example, And the first term, Jim Madis was his first choice for Defense secretary. He met Jim Madis for the first time I think at Bedminster and then I remember we traveled to North Carolina December fifth, twenty sixteenth. Madison's on the plane with us with one of his aids, and I was like, the first time they actually had a real discussion. And so you had a guy getting to know his secretary of Defense. In the second term, he's known Pete Hegxsath for probably fifteen years. Same thing with Pam Bondy, Like the President has known Pam for at least twenty twenty five years. And you go down the list and the number of people. Suz while it's the chief of staff, he's known him and been around him in his orbit for at least ten years. These are people that have the level of levels familiarity with him and he with them. But most importantly, they understand the job at hand, which is there there to implement the Resident's agenda, not their own, not to obfuscate it. You remember all those rumors the first term about Habinet members secretly meaning to invoke the twenty fifth Amendment, And you don't hear that now because these folks get it. They know what their job is, they know what they're being asked to. Do, and like you said, they're loyalists and they're sticking to the plan. So one year in, for all intensive purposes, it's about a year, right. The President has accomplished an astonishing amount of things and has really really made a case for himself as the peace president with all the conflicts that he's been solving. We don't know what's going to happen yet with Ukraine and Russia. I was talking about that earlier. I, for one think Vladimir Putin is still kind of pulling everybody's chain I don't think he really wants to make a deal. I don't think that's going to happen so quickly. But most of what the president has done has been, you know, through executive orders and his presidential powers. Right one year in now we see that the Republican party in the House and the Senate is not they haven't really done anything yet, Like what's going on with the Republican Party, Sean. Well, first, it passed the big beautiful bill, which was obviously, Yeah, that was it. That was it. Thank god they did that, right, And look to your larger point, here's the thing. You're right, the president has done a lot of this by executive order and action. Here's my thing. One, it did show us that that you know, Biden kept telling us that he couldn't do certain things because he needed a legislation. That that was completely not true. But secondly, I'm worried and I think this is what you're getting at, which is I want to codify a lot of the things the president's doing in law so that a new president at some point can't just undo because presidents have a habit of coming in and undoing the executive orders of the previous one and what I want to do is take a lot of the wins that the President has gotten, codify them and lost so we don't have to worry about this again. And if I were, if I were, and I've said this to the President himself personally, but there are certain things that I would make sure get done so that if we lose the House or the Senate or whatever, that these are things locked in that we don't have to worry about undoing or negotiating on in the future. Yes, I think that's what we all want to see happen. But but but is it going to happen. It appears, you know that once again the Republicans have no real plan on healthcare. This Epstein files thing, not that that's so important, but that has been a complete mess. You have Anna Paulina Luna pushing for, you know, to to stop congressional trading. There's a bunch of people for it, there's a bunch of people against it. Don't know where that's gonna go. There just seems to be which is always the case for the most part in Congress, but there seems to be a lot of stuff that that the Republicans that that have control of everything, right now are not really taking control of. Well, I mean yeah, I mean there's a lot a lot more they could be doing. And the one thing I will say, in sort of Speaker John's defense, when you've got like a two seat majority, it's it's hard to sort of, you know, to get one on the same page. That being said, you're right, when they're in the majority, people expect you to legislate and to get things done. So, as I said, I would look at like what I find upsetting about healthcare in particular is we've talked about this for ten years and we're still sitting here having the same conversation about what we should do. I don't think I think you know, some of the conversations that I've had. It's at least wrapping up the consensus piece of this, what everyone agrees on, should not be that difficult. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean apparently it is that difficult. But I mean healthcare is the one thing that affects every American in some way, shape or form, and I think, whether you know it's Republicans or Democrats, people want to see something, you know, getting done on that front at least. And you make a very valid point, right, I said, And you know, the lame stream media always says, well, they have control of everything. But yes, it's a very slim majority that the Republicans have. Yeah, and plus, I mean, look, it's not just in the House that's one hundred percent true. In the Senate, it's not. You know, I know, we technically have a fifty two seat majority, but as you know, anyone who's really studied is knows you need sixty votes to get stuff done unless they're willing to repeal the silabuster, and so you don't have a real majority. You have a you know, a numerical majority. I'm with the President on this. I think that the syllabuster serves a purpose. But if we know the Democrats are going to undo it, which they've said they would they voted to, it's not theoretical that I think we need to We need to get one step ahead and stop playing checkers and start playing chess right right. All right, real quick, because we're just about out of time. So what do you what do you see coming up in twenty twenty six? What's when when when the president in Congress gets back in January? We got the mid terms comeming up. What's what's one or two. With the big major I mean, I mean, look, look there's two big things. One they have to figure out this healthcare thing. I mean, Speaker Johnson said it. I mean, to your point, it affects everybody, and and you shouldn't get punished, you know, so right now if you if you have to go through the exchanges. The Democrats took this away from the American people, forced Obamacare down our throats, subsidized it down our throats, lie to us about the program. I don't I feel bad for people who are now having to make, you know, major life decisions budget wise and how they're going to spend their money because they want to have health care. They're playing by the rules they had, you know, they they got jammed on the plans. So we got to deal with healthcare, and we got to fund the rest of government. There's eighty five percent that's still not funded. Remember we shut down the government. We had a deal with the Democrats to open it until January thirty, so right off the bat. And then, by the way, they're already them behind the eight ball as funding the next year's government. So we're we're behind the eight ball, you know. So just if they get those three things done, which is a healthcare be figuring out the last fiscally year twenty twenty six, and then actually doing their job in terms of twenty twenty seven. That in itself will be a big deal. Yeah. And based on what happened a month or two ago, when they get back in January and they start working on the budget, that healthcare is probably going to play into the budget and it's potentially another big mess right off the bat. As you mentioned, our former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, host of the Shawn Spicer Show. You're on YouTube with your actual show, right and then the podcast everywhere that you can get podcasts. Yeah, just go to YouTube at Sean Spicer, Sean and Spicer at YouTube. Tonight we've got doctor Oz and Michael Schellenberg on, so we've got some great shows even as we head into the holidays. So please go to YouTube, subscriber anywhere you get your podcasts. All right, thank you as always, Sean, appreciate the time, Have a merry Christmas, and we'll talk to you next year. All right. Holiday football has arrived right with Draft Kings sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NFL. The unexpected can turn game day into payday, and don't forget Draft Kings as your back with early exit pretty neat function here. If your player goes down in the first half, you still get paid in cash. Download the Draft Kings sports book app and use the code PETE. That's code pete. New customers can bet five bucks and get two hundred dollars in bonus bets if your bet wins instantly. In partnership with Draft Kings, the Crown is yours. Gambling problem call one eight hundred gambler In New York call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and why two four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling Call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. 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You get to hear a lot of great segments from a lot of different shows on Newsmax. All right, so I've mentioned several times about Friday, the release of the Epstein files, right, and thanks again to former White House Press secretary. I didn't get to ask him about Caroline Levitt. You know, once you get into things you start talking, the time just flies by. But being. A former White House Press secretary for President Trump, knowing what it's like not only to be in that position, but to be in that position for President Trump, I really wanted to ask Sean Spicer what he thinks of the job that Caroline Levitt is doing seven oh four five seven one four one oh seven nine seven four five seven oh one oh seven nine. If you want to talk about how good of a job you think Caroline Levitt is doing or maybe not doing, or you want to talk about anything else, it's our three. If the Pete Callander Show were heading into the home stretch, and Hope will open up the phone lines and take a bunch of phone calls seven four five seven one seven nine. All right, So you remember, Congress came up with the the Epstein Transparency Act, the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Uh. And this was all initiated by Kentucky Representative Thomas Massey you've heard President Trump talk about him before, and Representative Democratic Representative Rocanna, Right, they spearheaded the effort and then they came up with the Epstein Transparency Act, finally signed by Congress, went to the President's desk, the President signed it. Calmed everybody down for a little bit. Inside the The Epstein Transparency Act was a deadline to get the rest of the information out to the public. Now, keep in mind, troves and troves of information have been released already. Right, the government, the FBI the DOJ. They released tons of evidence over the course of time. Then James Comer, chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, he petitioned the Epstein estate to get more evidence from them. That's where the supposed Wall Street Journal drawing, the little thing that Trump supposedly drew, photos, phone numbers, you know, all that stuff. There's still no diary, right, even though we heard about the diary for years, there's there's still no diary. But anyway, Friday was the deadline, and they released a whole trove more stuff on top of you know, all the thousands of documents that had already been released. Now Congress is on recess as of Friday. President went home to Palm Beach. Congress went home, but several members of Congress made it onto various news programs over the weekend. Sixty Minutes, CBS, What is It, Faced the Nation, ABC, ABC's This Week, all of that. They made it onto the big news shows to talk about the Epstein files, complain about the release of the Epstein files. This is House Minority Leader Hakkeim Jeffries on ABC This Week. There needs to be a full and complete explanation, and then a full and complete investigation as to why the document production has fallen short of what the law clearly required. So that is the top Democrat in the House, Hakkeim Jeffries, exactly what we need another congressional investigation. Right, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee is still investigating the investigation into the Epstein files, which is what led to the Epstein Transparency Act. Now Hakim Jeffries wants an investigation into the response of the Epstein Transparency Act. I mean, where is it going to end? Right? And I mentioned Thomas Massey and Roe Conna. It was their effort that forced the Epstein release by co sponsoring the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Now the two of them are threatening to impeach Attorney General Pambondi. That's where we're at with this, the two lawmakers threatening a seldom used congressional sanction against the Department of Justice over what they say is the failure. And again keep in mind, Thomas Massey is a Republican. This is a partisan, a bipartisan issue. Failure to release all of the files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which also includes files on his cohort Elaine Maxwell, who is as guilty in everything. As Jeffrey Epstein. Is, you know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinner's, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit Creative video dot com. As I mentioned back at the open of the show, WBT just a phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal radio station. I explained earlier why I was saying that, not only because I'm filling in today, but I was the morning news anchor here a few years back. Fantastic station, fantastic, super talented people. And again, I'm not just saying that because I'm filling in. I'm saying that because I've been around, I've worked with a lot of people, and the fact that WBT is live and local throughout the entire day, starting with Bo and Beth in the morning, and you just don't see that really anywhere any longer. Fantastic radio station serving a fantastic community. All Right, So we talked about if you are just tuning in, we we covered a wide gamut of news here right, talked about a lot of politics, talked about healthcare, talked to Michael Wattley, North Carolina Senate candidate. We talked about Friday's Trump appearance and Michael Wattley rally there in Rocky Mount. Talked about the power Ball, which Pam and Brandon were just talking about. To clear any confusion, there was no power ball winner over the weekend was one and a half billion dollars over the weekend. It's now one point six billion tonight, and then if nobody wins tonight, it'll be like one point seven one point eight billion on Wednesday. I'm not sure where this is coming in in the rankings of you know, the biggest jackpots ever, but it's way beyond anything that anybody would ever need. Even if you take the lump sum payment and pay all the taxes and everything, you'll still have hundreds of millions of dollars. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Seven oh four five, seven oh one, seven nine is the phone number if you have anything, you know, questions, comments, concerns, want to say, Merry Christmas. It is so hard to believe that we are now two days or three days away from Christmas, depending upon how you look at it, if you're including today or not today. A lot of people already traveling. According to Pam, things have been pretty good on the roads, but you know it's probably busy already at the airport, and it is going to get a lot busier on the roads and at the airport over the next couple days. So now and now that we took care of you know, a whole lot of serious business, right and it is the holidays. We need to have some fun talk about some things. I'm looking at this new study from lending Tree, and I don't know, you know, if you will actually admit this on the radio. I should say if you want to call with a fake name or fake voice, or you may not care and just say yeah, I've done that. But a study from lending Tree finds that more than one in four shoppers admits to stealing items while scanning their own items at the grocery store or other self checkout line. So more than one in four is more than twenty five percent, right, Let's say thirty percent or a third a third of people admit that yes, they've stolen stuff while scanning their groceries or scanning stuff at other checkout lines. It's a huge increase from back in twenty twenty three, when fifteen percent of shoppers said they never paid for items at the self checkout. So it's gone from fifteen percent to roughly thirty percent in two years. Some of those who took part in the survey, again this is from lending Tree, say they felt pressure. They felt pressure to shoplift because of the sky rocketing prices for everyday items. Food items mostly apples, bananas, coffee, beef, canned goods, you know, all of that stuff. The survey of roughly three thousand adults in the United States, this is kind of interesting, found forty one percent of the people most likely to steal while scanning items are millennials, thirty seven percent our gen Z. Only two percent are baby boomers. So you could see sort of how the decline of what would be the word morals I'm going to say, for lack of a better term, you can see you could see how the decline of society and morals has worked its way up to the or down to the younger and younger generation. Right, Only two percent of baby boomers or they're lying, say they stole from grocery stores while checking out their own items thirty seven percent gen Z, forty one percent millennials. And I'm not just picking on the millennials, but you know, there are those people, not necessarily millennials, but there are those people that think they're just so entitled, you know, the self entitled folks like why not steal it? Okay, now I will admit I do not like the self checkout. Some people love it. Right, you run in the store, you're only buying a couple of things, Boom boom, boom, you're out of there. And in some case, in that case, you know, I'm okay with it. But when you go grocery shopping and you're loaded up, and then you have to scan all this stuff, and inevitably there are always things that don't scan. I will go on record as saying, if I scan it three times, four times and it doesn't ring up, and it's like a can of soup, maybe I may have put it in my in my you know, basket or in my bag. Let's say, I mean, I'm not you know, the lady has to come over, put in the code, do the whole thing. Okay, I feel like I'm spending all that money. I'm their customer. They should be giving me customer service. If I have to scan it three, four or five times. On the fifth time, if it doesn't work, you know, okay, they lose. So retailers and grocery chains, you know, are trying to stop that by going back to traditional cashiers, which you may have noticed that more and more stores are going back to traditional cashiers. Psychologists say they're fascinated by the rise in theft at checkout lines that more often are being carried out by shoppers who would never dream of stealing an item while walking in the aisles. Also, it tends to be more men than women thirty eight percent. Are men more than twice as likely to steal as women sixteen percent. Sixteen percent of women admit that they have stole stuff at the self checkout line thirty eight percent of men. So either women are more honest or they're lying more. But anyway, it's you know, it's it's interestings are now putting cash registers and cashiers, you know, back in line to fend off or fight all of the shoplifting that's going on. And you know, past couple of weeks, if you've been in a store, how crazy and crowded it has been. Not just the grocery store, but you know, Walmart, Target, anywhere, South Park Mall. I mean, if people have an opportunity, it's probably gonna happen. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You could check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Tony Marino in for Pete. Pete on a much well deserved vacation, like a lot of the other WBT staff. Hopefully he's doing something fun, enjoying himself, and as I said at the beginning, I'm trying not to upset the Apple Car too much. Just bring you a lot of great information, as Pete often does. We talked about this a little bit earlier, but there hasn't been any There hasn't been much more information. Brandon has talked about it in the news as well. On the death of Greg Bill, his wife and children in that horrific plane crash last week. There was some information about a text message or text messages that were sent just prior to the crash, but no information as of yet on funeral arrangements or anything like that. But such a terrible, terrible tragedy. If you're a NASCAR fan, certainly remember Biffle as a fantastic driver. If you're you know, just a fan of good people, you remember all the good that he did, especially in western North Carolina after the hurricane and all of that. So we are into the home stretch our three Pete Callander Show on at WBT seven four five seven oh one o seven nine seven four five seven one seven nine. If you have a question, comment concern again. I am the host of the Newsma's daily podcast Everywhere and anywhere that you get your podcasts. If you're a fan of Newsmax, check that out. If you If you're a longtime WBT listener, you know that I used to be the morning news anchor with Bo and Beth. Pam Warner and I were talking off the air about the big Powerball lottery, as I mentioned several times, one point six billion tonight, I said that if I won, and you know, I mean, this is just such a ridiculous amount of money, but I mentioned that I would give a large sum of money to Samaritan's Perse, which is, you know, just a phenomenal organization. Not only are they so embedded in the Charlotte community, but they also do a lot of work with us at Newsmax, and you know, so it's an organization that I've followed and contributed to for a while. Pam, any idea, I mean, if you had more money than than you could possibly use, what's the first thing you would do? Life? Take care of, you know, the family that I need to take care of. But I've always said that I would definitely do some good with the money as well. Yeah, and I'm not putting you on the spot, like you know who you're going to donate to, but I mean, it's such a ridiculous amount of money that you literally could do anything, right, you really could. I mean, you could donate several million dollars, you know, to several of your favorite charities. Absolutely, you know it's not really going to make a difference. But I mentioned earlier, you know that I'd give money to Samaritan's Purse, and then I would buy a Corvette z O six, which is like two hundred thousand dollars. Maybe I'd buy two of them, or maybe i'd buy one for me and some for my kids. I don't know. I did always say that I would purchase a yacht just for a few years. Oh there, you get someone who's going to drive it, get a personal chef, get a tutor, and I just want to travel the world end, stay like a month or two in every country, learn the language, eat the food, see the sights, and just do that kind of learning with my son. See. Now, that is awesome, right, that's so far beyond anything I was thinking that. That's awesome. I mean, yeah, I would go to I would I would go to Italy for you know. I mean yeah, but I mean that is awesome. And that's the kind of money that you would need, you know, for something like that, right, I mean hundreds of millions of dollars to have a yacht at a crew to take you around pretty much. I don't want to have to learn how to do anything. Let them do it, all. Right, right, cook for you everything, everything, tutor my kid. Yeah, yeah, there you go. And how is your kid doing? God, he's what is he about to get married? Now? Slowdown? Slowed down? Not yet. I know he's thirteen. He's about to graduate the eighth grade and head into the ninth and he's thriving, he's getting great grades. We're going into another ib high school. Solish for the best for him. All right, heading to high school. Yes, I remember when he was heading to middle school. Right now he's graduating middle school. This this is last year. All right, Well you tell him. I said, hello, good to spend some time with you today. I will be back tomorrow on the Pete Calendar show. I'm not sure when Pete will be back, but probably out for the next two weeks for the holidays. This is what seven nine WBT. Okay, I'm being told Pete will be back next Monday, the twenty ninth. So there you go. Thank you so much for listening today. Talk to you tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of you day. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepeteclendershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone. M