The scandal of USAID and the Census (02-03-2025--Hour3)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 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 the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.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.

[00:00:28] So last hour, I mentioned USAID. It stands for the Agency for International Development. USAID.

[00:00:42] And there is a great gnashing of the teeth, clutching of the pearls, fainting onto the fainting couches, as one does, over efforts to rein in and dismantle this behemoth that has been accused of funding the Wuhan lab research, the misinformation complex, color revolutions in other countries.

[00:01:12] And a couple of terrorist charities, just thrown in for good measure. So, I mean, aside from that, it does some very valuable work. People are going to starve if you don't give them money. USAID.

[00:01:25] Oh, and also, this just came down that Donald Trump signed an executive order to defund UNRWA. The UN Human Rights Council pulled us out of that and to stop UNRWA funding.

[00:01:56] UNRWA is the shell, the front company, if you will, in Gaza. This is where hostages, upon their release from the Islamic jihadists, Hamas, they reported being kept hidden, held prisoner in UNRWA homes, facilities, schools, right?

[00:02:22] They are part of the problem. And so, Trump has signed an executive order to stop funding that horrible, evil organization. So, I'm fine with that, too. Yes. This is what we meant when we said we don't want to fund it. That's what we meant. Trump is fulfilling the promises. I think I mentioned this the other day. Maybe not. But so, I'll say it again.

[00:02:45] I was watching an interview that Bill O'Reilly gave to Piers Morgan on Piers Morgan's show, Uncensored. And O'Reilly said that he met with Trump, I think it was a little bit before the inauguration.

[00:03:04] O'Reilly went down to Mar-a-Lago and he had, you know, ate lunch with Trump or whatever. And Trump asked Bill O'Reilly what Bill thought Trump needed to do to be the greatest president ever. Because that's what, that's important to Donald Trump. He wants to go down in history as one of the greatest presidents ever, if not the greatest president ever, right?

[00:03:29] And O'Reilly gave him one piece of advice, he said. Fulfill your campaign promises. That's it. It sounds very easy to do. You made all these promises, now just do the things you said you would do. And you'll go down as one of the greatest, if not the greatest president. And it kind of seems like Trump may have taken that piece of advice.

[00:03:54] I'm sure he had already, you know, thought about it and he was already planning to do it himself and Bill didn't tell him anything he didn't already know and whatever, whatever, whatever. But I found that to be kind of interesting because I saw this interview, I don't know, a couple weeks ago. It was like right after the inauguration. And then you see this start unfolding and it's like, yeah, like they, they have hit the ground running. They have discombobulated the Democrats and the media, but I repeat myself and they don't know how to respond.

[00:04:22] There's so much stuff going on. I have a hard time, you know, putting together the show every day because the stuff I put together then becomes sort of old news like an hour later. That's no way to prep for a show, Pete. So there's just constantly stuff coming out, constant, it's just this barrage.

[00:04:44] And so it's hard to keep up, it's hard to keep pace and things that would otherwise generate, you know, a lot of attention and focus for a week or two, maybe months. There's there's not enough time. There's not enough, you know, there's not enough broadcast time. And that's not just me, it's everybody. And for me, like I made this pledge or commitment or like I said back in.

[00:05:13] And so this was after Trump won. So this would have been like 2017. And I said, I'm not going to make every show about Donald Trump. And about what he said or what he tweeted, you remember those days where he would, you know, he'd fire off a bunch of tweets and everybody would be like, oh my God, I can't believe he said that. And then we would spend like a day or two and everybody would be parsing his tweet and all of this. And I said, I'm not going, I'm not going to do that. There are other things that require attention.

[00:05:40] So like, I'm not that I'm not, not that I'm going to ignore, you know, anything that has to do with Donald Trump, but I said, I'm not going to let him set my agenda for my show every day. I have found that to be almost impossible to do now because there's just so much stuff going on. And I'm not saying it's as a bad thing. I'm just pointing it out that this is a very different thing.

[00:06:06] And I, and the irony of ironies here is that I don't think that we would be witnessing this had we not gone through the last four years, actually the last eight. Had Trump, had Trump served back to back terms? I don't think we see this. I really don't. I think this is only because of his, you know, time in exile on Elba.

[00:06:37] That's a Napoleon reference, not dynamite. But the, like he, he was out and it gave him and all of his people plenty of time to go through and say, this is what we're going to do. We're going to, this is how we're going to stack it. Here's our plan of attack and all of that. Here are the legal arguments, get the people involved in all that.

[00:06:56] But also they were aided obviously by the, uh, the overreaches of the Democrats, uh, and the policies they enacted in the way they protected Joe Biden and his failing, you know, cognitive abilities. And so it, like it all came to pass this way because of what happened. And I don't know if we would be seeing the same kind of activity right now, if we had not gone through the last four years. Right? So this brings us to USAID.

[00:07:24] Do you think Donald Trump would have been looking to completely obliterate USAID? Had it not been weaponized against him? Over the last eight years, probably not. Right?

[00:07:37] Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID were instructed to stay out of the agency's Washington headquarters today, according to a notice distributed to them after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency down. And again, I point out for people who are claiming that Trump doesn't have the authority to do it.

[00:08:04] I would submit he does because it was created by an executive order by John F. Kennedy. And so I, I would think now, unless there's some, you know, brand new interpretation here where it's like a president can, and we'd saw this with Obama, by the way, and a ruling against, um, I think it was an immigration related case where, uh, remember Obama did something and then Trump tried to undo it. And they were like, no, you can't do that. Like, well, wait a minute.

[00:08:31] If Obama did it with an executive order, it can be undone with an executive order. And then there's like, no, not really, because reasons. So unless we end up with some kind of, you know, cockamamie judicial ruling like that, I, I don't see how, I don't see how Trump is, you know, outside the bounds of his authority here. U.S. aid staffers said they also tracked more than 600 employees who reported being locked out of the agency's computer systems overnight.

[00:08:58] Those still in the system received emails saying that, quote, at the direction of agency leadership, the headquarters building will be closed to agency personnel today. Monday, the third. The developments came after Musk, who's leading an extraordinary civilian review of the federal government with the Republican president's agreement, said early in the morning today that he had spoken with Trump about the six decade U.S. aid and development agency. And, quote, he agreed we should shut it down.

[00:09:27] And so shut it down, they are. Over the weekend, the Trump administration put two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk's government inspection teams. A current and former U.S. official told the Associated Press on Sunday. This is an article at the AP. Right.

[00:09:54] I suspect Trump is doing or he's allowing Musk to do what Musk did at Twitter, which is when Musk got in there, he basically fired 80 percent of the workforce. And everybody said, this is not going to work. Oh, my gosh, you're going to ruin Twitter. Everything's going to crumble. We need all these people. And then it turned out they didn't. They didn't. They were they had just way too many people on staff and they didn't need all of the people.

[00:10:21] And they were creating inferior products. And so. That seems to me what they are doing at USAID. But what do I know? I'm just a little old radio host. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina? Just a quick drive up the mountain. And Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal or get family and friends together for a big old reunion.

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[00:11:41] Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. So this is an article out of the Associated Press about USAID, U.S. What does it say for the Agency for International Development? Created by John F. Kennedy in order to, you know, send a bunch of food and aid to countries that were struggling, that were in need.

[00:12:08] And the idea was, you know, this would help with sort of soft diplomacy. Right? People would see all the bags of food piled up at the docks and see USAID all over it. And they would be like, hey, those Americans, they're all right. You know, they kept me from starving. And in principle, I kind of like that idea. It makes sense. I think for, you know, bang for the buck, it's pretty cheap.

[00:12:32] Like, if you can make people friendly towards you or at least not hostile, right, then, you know, you send this message that we are helpers. We want to help people. We're trying to do good. And you need some food and we can give you some food. Here's some food. Right? Charity. I'm okay with that. The problem is when you set the agency up to give out food and the next thing I know, you're using the money as a pass-through for NGOs to organize migrant caravans.

[00:13:01] Like, that's a problem. That's a problem. Right? You're using USAID funding to send money to Bill Kristol. You know, like, hmm, never Trumper guy. Like, ah. Or you're sending money to fund drag queen story hours in Sudan. I'm not sure we have kept our eye on the goal here, people. You know?

[00:13:29] Well, so Democratic lawmakers are protesting the moves to shut down USAID saying Trump lacks the constitutional authority to shut it down without congressional approval. Which, again, I'm not so sure that's the case. Why would that be the case? If it was created by a stroke of the pen by JFK, then why can't it be uncreated in the exact same manner? Well, Pete, once Congress puts money towards it, then it just lives forever. Really?

[00:14:01] See, this is the problem. When you have rules and then you break the rules to do things like this, not what Trump did, but what Kennedy did. Right? When you break rules to create these government programs and services and you don't run it through legislation, it creates a lot of ambiguity now about who's in control of it. Like, because I saw some reports like we're going to try to move this thing under the U.S. State Department. Like, no, no, no, no, stop.

[00:14:31] Don't put it under. Just get rid of it. Just get rid of it. If Congress wants to do some sort of an aid program, then let them do a grant. Let them send the money. Let them vote on it and appropriate the money that way. We don't need to be doing this through USAID. Again, like, it is a classic example of what happens with government programs and services all the time. They expand. They expand.

[00:15:01] Right? And they break the boundaries of the thing of the original guardrails that they were initially set up to focus their attention on certain issues. And then they get bigger and bigger and they get more and more money. And then they just start expanding beyond what the initial parameters were. And so it's like a controlled burn. And I know Democrats don't like doing those, but that's what it's like. All right. I hope you had a happy holiday season. But tell me if something like this happened at your house.

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[00:16:22] Trust the experts at Create a Video, conveniently located in Mint Hill, right off I-485, and online at createavideo.com. So the AP, when they did this story on the USAID cuts and the locking out of the employees, they reported that Elon Musk's and Trump's comments came with Secretary of State Marco Rubio out of the country in Central America on his first trip abroad in office. Rubio has not spoken publicly about any plans to shut down USAID.

[00:16:54] Now he has. Because apparently Marco Rubio is now the new acting director of USAID. And here's what he just said to the press. USAID. What's happening at USAID? Another question for you. Well, look, I mean, my frustration with USAID goes back to my time in Congress. It's a completely unresponsive agency. It's supposed to respond to policy directives of the State Department, and it refuses to do so.

[00:17:22] So the functions of USAID, there are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue, that are going to be part of American foreign policy. But it has to be aligned with American foreign policy. I said very clearly when we, during my confirmation hearing, that every dollar we spend and every program we fund, that will be aligned with the national interest of the United States. And USAID has a history of sort of ignoring that and deciding that there's somehow a global charity separate from the national interest. These are taxpayer dollars.

[00:17:49] And so I'm very troubled by these reports that they've been unwilling to cooperate with people who are asking simple questions about what does this program do, who gets the money, who are our contractors, who's funded. And that sort of level of insubordination makes it impossible to conduct a sort of mature and serious review that I think foreign aid writ large should have. We're spending taxpayer money here. These are not donor dollars. These are taxpayer dollars.

[00:18:14] And we owe the American people the assurances that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest. And so far, a lot of the people that work at USAID have just simply refused to cooperate. Are you currently in charge of USAID? I'm the acting director of USAID. I've delegated that authority to someone, but I stay in touch with him. And again, our goal was to go in and align our foreign aid to the national interest.

[00:18:42] But if you go to mission after mission and embassy after embassy around the world, you will often find that in many cases USAID is involved in programs that run counter to what we're trying to do in our national strategy with that country or with that region. That cannot continue. USAID is not an independent, non-governmental entity. It is an entity that spends taxpayer dollars and it needs to spend it, as the statute says, in alignment with the policy directives that they get from the Secretary of State, the National Security Council, and the President.

[00:19:11] And it's been 20 or 30 years where people have tried to reform it. And it refuses to reform. It refuses to cooperate. When we were in Congress, we couldn't even get answers to basic questions about programs. That will not continue. That's not going to continue. Do you know a lot of public affairs with the nation? Do you believe that? I've articulated to you my challenges with it. And they go back to my time in Congress. We would ask them questions. Who does this program fund? Who gets the money? We won't tell you. We don't need to tell you. We're apolitical. Look, American foreign policy isn't apolitical.

[00:19:40] American foreign policy is to further the interest of the United States. If someone wants to spend apolitical dollars, they should spend private dollars. Go start a charity. And you can fund anyone you want. But if you're going to spend taxpayer money, then you need to spend it in furtherance of the national interest of the United States. That's exactly what I said in my confirmation hearing. And this is not my frustration. This frustration has existed now for almost a quarter century in multiple administrations that have gone through this challenge. It's going to stop and it's going to end. Can you tell us a little bit about this? All right. So there you go.

[00:20:10] That was Rubio. Just arrived back from Panama. And he's exactly right. He is exactly right. You don't get to take taxpayer funds like that and then not tell us what it's being used for. Okay. Yes, yes. Unless you're the military. That's right.

[00:20:31] But if you get an administration in there and like, okay, this is going to be our posture now towards, you know, country a and USAID personnel are like, no, we don't think that's the best policy. So we're just going to keep funding these other entities that the CIA is. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. The CIA would never use USAID. To foment any kind of discord in another country.

[00:21:01] So anyway, they USAID personnel is like, we don't want to do that. We don't think that's the right thing. You'll be gone in four years, whatever, whatever. And he like if Rubio, if what he's saying is true, that as members of Congress, like they've asked for what are you funding on? Like, what is this money for? And they refuse. They just there. That is insubordination. Right.

[00:21:22] And like, depending on what you're funding, like you're working at at counter purpose to the stated administration's goals. So. You're in the F.O. part of the F.A.F.O. dynamic there. USAID. They thought and by the way, Democrats are now outside the headquarters of USAID. And they're out there doing a press conference. All the people are going to die.

[00:21:51] You know, the Trump administration and Rubio have imposed an unprecedented freeze on foreign assistance that has shut down much of USAID's aid programs worldwide, compelling thousands of layoffs by aid organizations and ordered furloughs and leaves that have gutted the agency's leadership and staff in Washington. See, it's the thing. They act like they are a standalone unit of government. And they're not.

[00:22:19] Or, as he said, they're acting like they're the world's charity, like they're a global charity. But they're not. Oh, have you heard about the census director? He quit. Just up and quit. Robert Santos resigned as the director of the U.S. Census Bureau. I wonder why he did that. I think I might know. 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?

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[00:23:36] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Got an email from Bob. It's a Pete mail. He says, correct. Shut it all down. Very carefully. Bring back essential functions with sunset provisions. For USAID for the shuttering of various government funded programs and such. Yeah, that that is that's one way to go about this.

[00:24:07] I mentioned before the break the U.S. Census and for people who have been following this story for a while. This will not come as any kind of a surprise to you because it has been it has been known. It has been reported on in conservative media, not in sort of mainstream media. Not that I have seen as well. But there was a good breakdown by a guy named Seth Keschel or Keschel.

[00:24:33] He is an MBA is a former army captain of military intelligence. He's a veteran from the Afghanistan war. And. He does analytics and forecasting. On elections and such. And so he writes at a sub stack. I thought I had the thought I had the name of it here, but I guess it's S. Keschel, K-E-S-H-E-L, S.

[00:25:03] Keschel or Keschel. And his name is Captain Seth Keschel. And. He reported how the director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Robert Santos. Abruptly resigned. And. If you know the problems that the census had in 2020. Oh, because of COVID. Yeah. Then. This might.

[00:25:33] If you know about that, what happened then in 2020. This might actually. Not come as such a huge surprise. He says yours truly. Meaning him. Captain Keschel. Briefed the staff of Congressman. Comer. Matt Comer. The head of. Was it House Government Oversight Committee? He briefed Comer. In December. During a hearing on the 2020 U.S. Census. And.

[00:26:02] It's considerable. It's considerable. Corruption. Using research compiled by some of the best in the business. I pegged Santos as one of the key linchpins. In concealing. The census rigging scam. From the public. Right. So what is the. All right. First off. Why is the census so important? Right. It's not just to get a count of people. And ask them invasive questions. And stuff like that. The purpose of the counting of the people. It's in the Constitution. The purpose.

[00:26:31] Is to apportion. Our members of Congress. The House seats. Right. And yes. Like once you do that. There's all. You know. There's there's a. Per capita population funding formulas. And stuff at the federal level. And all of that. But you need the count. Of how many people are in America. In order to. Then. Essentially distribute. To allocate. All of the House seats. Because that is a formula. Where you take the total population. Of the country.

[00:26:59] And you divide it by the 435 members of the House. And you get a number. And that number is somewhere in the 800,000 range. It's somewhere around 800,000. So that is the number. Or that's the population. I should say. Of. Every House district. Now if you're in a state. And you don't even have 800,000 people. Then. You get one House seat. Okay. You're guaranteed a minimum of one House seat. Even if you don't have 800,000 people.

[00:27:27] But a state that's got. You know. 1.6 million people. They would get two House seats. Right. Because each one is 800,000 people. So if you are counting. Population. And. That number is then used. To essentially. Kind of sort of determine. Who controls the House of Representatives. If you're in control of the counting. You can juice. The stats there.

[00:27:57] Depending on who you count. And. Areas where you may have. Overcounted. Just a smidge. And areas that you may. Undercount. In. You know. Just a smidge. And the effect there. Is when you do it. Across the whole country. You can. Have a differential. 15 or 16. House seats. And that's precisely. What happened in 2020. Where the mistakes. All tended in.

[00:28:28] One direction. Which was. To help. Blue states. Keep. Their seats. Rather than lose. Because they were losing. Population. So. They helped to keep. Blue states. With an extra. Congressional seat. That they otherwise. Would have lost. And red states. Are prevented from gaining. A house seat. And those also. By the way. That the. The number of seats. Right. Those determine. The electoral college votes. And so. A state.

[00:28:57] That has like. North Carolina. Has been growing. We keep adding. An additional. Congressional seat. We're now up to 14. I think. When I first moved here. We were at. 10. I think. So we've picked up. Like four seats. Over the course of. Like 30 years or so. And so we keep adding. More and more seats. And so when we vote. For a Republican president. They get more and more. Electoral college votes. So. More people moving. To red states. Means an easier path. For a Republican. Presidential. Candidate.

[00:29:28] And then. There is another aspect. To this. Which is the. The counting. Of. Illegal immigrants. Right. When you have people. That are in a state. That are getting counted. But they cannot vote. Right. The. The Democrat position. On this is that. Well. We need to know. What the vote. Or what the population count. Is. Even if they can't vote. Because there are. Services. That are. Funded. At the federal level. Based on population.

[00:29:58] And so. Trump. You'll recall. Tried to. Stop the counting. Of illegal aliens. From being included. In the census. Which to me. Makes sense. You take the population. Of the people. That. That are citizens. In the state. And the people. Who are not citizens. They should be counted. In a census. From the country. From which they came. Because they are citizens. Of that country. Right. That's where you would. And that's how you would know.

[00:30:28] Right. What the number of illegal aliens. In America would be like. Okay. Here's the. Here's the difference. But they don't get counted. Back home. They get counted here. And so. If you have a whole bunch of people. That are getting counted. But don't get to vote. And their. Their head count. Their presence. Simply aids. The majority. Party. In this case. The Democrats. Then you're creating. A permanent. Ruling class. In that. State.

[00:30:59] Because. You just have people. That are there. They can never vote. And they can't vote out. The Democrats. But they get counted. So the Democrats. Keep more seats. And they keep a hammer lock. On the state. So this is the corruption. Of the census. And. In the House. Had these states. Gotten their. Proper counts. According to the. Analysis here. In the House. It would have delivered. Trump. A 236.

[00:31:29] To 199. Majority. Just based on the. Apportionment. Adjustments. He says. Trump. Trump would have won. 320 electoral votes. Harris would have picked up. 218. A swing of 16. Electoral votes. Towards Trump. And that was in line. With the. With the predictive model. That this guy ran. Before the election. Even occurred. And the Carolinas. Are by the way. They are in the mix. On this. The Carolinas. Are in the mix. We'll probably get another seat. In 2030.

[00:31:58] But we probably should have. Gotten one. This time around. 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. ThePeteCalendarShow.com Again. Thank you so much. For listening. And don't break anything. While I'm gone.