Tillis tanks Trump pick (05-08-2025--Hour3)

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[00:00:29] Gosh, the city council, we're not corrupt press conference. We got a new pope today. Also, Tom Tillis has tanked Trump's pick for the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. The pressure campaign that was launched against Tillis to try to get him to reverse course did not work. And so this came down a little bit ago.

[00:00:57] That President Trump says he will pull Ed Martin's nomination saying we have somebody else that we'll be announcing over the next two days. All right, so what is all of this about? Republican Senator Tom Tillis from North Carolina, who is up for re-election next year, 2026.

[00:01:21] He said, I guess this would have been two days ago, that he told the White House that he would not be supporting Ed Martin, who was the pick to be the D.C. U.S. attorney, which stalled his nomination, Martin's nomination, because in the Senate, nominations go through the Judiciary Committee.

[00:01:48] Then they go on to the full Senate for confirmation. That's that's sort of the process. And if you don't get a majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee, you don't get out of the committee. And normally then that means you're not going to you're not going to win appointment. Tillis told reporters. Tuesday that he had met with Ed Martin the previous day. So Monday evening, he and Martin have a meeting.

[00:02:15] And Tillis says then the next day on Tuesday that he is opposing Martin's nomination because of his defense of rioters who breached the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Martin, a leading figure in Trump's campaign to overturn the 2020 election, spoke at a rally the day before January 6th.

[00:02:42] And I do have the audio here is here is Tom Tillis with that gaggle of reporters in the hallway. He is. I don't believe he's been advanced to the markup. And I met with Mr. Martin. He seems like a good man. Most of my concerns related to January 6th. And he built a compelling case on some of the 1512 prosecutions that were probably key to the moment bad decisions.

[00:03:12] But where we probably have a difference is I think anybody that breached the perimeter should have been in prison for some period of time. Whether it's 30 days or three years is debatable. But I have no tolerance for anybody who entered the building on January 6th. And that's probably where most of the friction was. He has no tolerance for anybody that entered the building on J6. None. And Tillis says that, OK, maybe there were some over prosecutions.

[00:03:41] What do you say? 15 to 12. So like a dozen out of the out of the what? Fifteen hundred prosecutions. That maybe 12 of them were as a little bit much. There were people that entered that building. That were waved in by Capitol Police. They're on video. They were waved in. There were people that were following the crowd.

[00:04:10] They arrived after the breach of the building, after people had gotten in. And so then you have this crowd that's just kind of filing through. And there are people that just like saw everybody walking through. So they just walked up through, too. You're telling me they deserve prison time for that when they did not know that they were breaching the Capitol as part of a riot? Because the breachers were way ahead of them into the interior of the building. Well, they should have known they can't do that.

[00:04:39] They should have known that they shouldn't follow a Capitol Police officer waving them in. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington is the country's largest and prosecuted more than fifteen hundred riot defenders, defendants rather, after the J6 attack. Trump pardoned most of the rioters the day he was inaugurated. And he later appointed Ed Martin to temporarily lead the D.C. office.

[00:05:08] That appointment expires in less than two weeks because it was a temporary appointment. And Trump had urged Republican senators to confirm Martin to the job full time. So that was why we are waiting. So the job has been filled. Martin's been doing it. But it was for like 180 days or something like that. It's a temporary post until he can get the confirmation. And Tillis has this meeting. They have this discussion.

[00:05:37] And I kind of feel like maybe Tillis isn't fully informed on all of the cases. If he's saying that if you entered the building, you should have been thrown in prison. And he dismisses that there was, OK, maybe there was some over prosecuting in about half a dozen cases. Like there have been movies made about the over prosecuting. These they went after these people for four years.

[00:06:06] And some of these folks have served lengthy prison time and did nothing more than walk through the Capitol following a line of people, not knowing there was some sort of breach or a riot. They were some of them didn't even enter the building itself. So. And look, I've done no deep diving into every case of the J6 people. I do follow some of the attorneys that represent some of those J6 defendants.

[00:06:36] And the cases that I have seen spelled out more than a dozen. One guy, I forget his name. He's a lawyer. Shipwrecked crew is his Twitter handle. And he's for four years. He's he's been talking about his cases and the overzealous prosecution of people that don't deserve. The charges that the prosecutors were throwing at them and the way their lives were completely destroyed.

[00:07:05] In the in the investigatory process, there were abuses. And that's why this guy had Martin came in and he demoted or fired a whole bunch of people out of that office. So he disagreed with you on that. Well, no, I have to say that Mr. Martin did a good job of explaining how there were people that probably got caught up in it. But they made the stupid decision to come through a building that had been breached and that the police officers and others were saying stay away.

[00:07:31] So the difference wasn't that they should be charged, in my estimation. It's by how much. That's an argument I'm willing to have. But we have to be very, very clear that what happened on January the 6th was wrong. It wasn't it was not prompted or created by other people to put those people in trouble. They made a stupid decision and they disgraced the United States. But by absolutely destroying the Capitol. And I can't have any patience. It sounds like your concerns were not.

[00:08:01] But let me be very clear, though. Mr. Martin did a good job of explaining the one area that I think he's probably right, that there were some people that were over prosecuted, but there were some two or three hundred of them that should have never gotten a pardon. And he agreed with that. But the disagreement there had more to do if Mr. Wait a minute. So there were two to three hundred people that never should have gotten a pardon. Martin agreed that they shouldn't have gotten a pardon.

[00:08:30] But Trump did the pardons. Trump did that. Not Martin. Martin doesn't have that power. And Martin, you just said Martin agrees with you. So what exactly is the disagreement over? I'm now unclear. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where January 6th happened. The protest happened. I'd probably support him. Wait a minute. Now I'm even more confused.

[00:08:55] That if he was appointed to the bench in Charlotte or something, you would have no problem with him being a U.S. attorney. Or not the bench, but the bar. The U.S. attorney's office in Charlotte. Then no problem. But because it's D.C., big problem. What is it about the D.C. U.S. attorney and that office that makes it different? Is it just that that was the jurisdiction where J6 happened? As Tillis is saying.

[00:09:23] I'm not following that logic. Now granted, I'm no U.S. senator. But I'm not really following that. I don't understand. If the guy's unqualified to be the U.S. attorney in D.C., then he's unqualified to be the U.S. attorney anywhere. Why would the venue matter? Is it because that's a more powerful venue? You do you deal more with.

[00:09:51] Government related lawsuits and criminal investigations and such. Is that it? But not in this district. When you say he's not being advanced to the markup, was he operating under that understanding that he's not being advanced through? Well, I think Mr. Martin, I'm sure they're looking through it. I mean, be clear. Some of the deadline has to do with the length of time he can operate his acting. And the administration can work through that if they want to have more time and potentially work them through.

[00:10:19] But at this point, I've indicated to the White House I wouldn't support his nomination. Hmm. So that that apparently did it. Trump announced that they're going to be pulling Ed Martin's nomination. They're going to announce somebody else. By the way, I would point out. Tillis did vote to confirm Merrick Garland as U.S. attorney general. Said he had an outstanding record serving our country and has a deep understanding of the law.

[00:10:47] His experience reflects his extensive legal knowledge and unbiased application of the law and his longstanding reputation of bipartisanship has earned the respect from both Democrats and Republicans. I have no doubt he will serve our country well. I have a feeling that maybe. Senator Tillis might not be great at reading people. Just maybe. 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.

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[00:12:12] but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. One of the risks with Tom Tillis's blockage of Ed Martin for the U.S. attorney position in Washington, D.C. was that if he were to be blocked and nobody were to be nominated and put in his place,

[00:12:39] then the appointment would actually go to a judge in the D.C. circuit, which I was not aware of this process, which is completely insane. Why would a judge, think about it, the U.S. attorney would be arguing sometimes in front of this judge and the U.S. attorney would have the job because of that judge? It's ridiculous.

[00:13:11] Because you know who would get to be the appointee or the appointee, sorry. Here is Ed Morrissey, HotAir.com. Thanks to the decision to have Martin serve only as an interim U.S. attorney. If the position is not filled within 120 days by a Senate-confirmed appointment, then the chief judge of the circuit can appoint an interim U.S. attorney to serve until the confirmation takes place.

[00:13:38] And guess who is the current chief judge of the D.C. circuit? Do you want to take a guess? Boasberg. Boasberg. Judge James Boasberg. The Obama-appointed judge at the center of the legal efforts targeting Trump's deportation efforts

[00:14:07] is the current chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Morrissey goes on to say, We have a truly absurd situation. Forget how we arrived at it. This is a constitutional conflict. How can an Article 3 official, so the Article 3 is the judiciary, appoint an Article 2 official, which is the executive, who will almost certainly appear before him in that courtroom?

[00:14:35] That's not just a constitutional conflict. It is a conflict of interest. Boasberg will essentially appoint his own prosecutor for cases that directly involve inherent Article 2 powers and authority. He says absurd doesn't even do the situation justice. Imagine this in the context of a criminal prosecution. If the prosecutor owes his job to the judge and the judge chose him to prosecute,

[00:15:03] how can that possibly be seen as impartial for the defendant? In the long term, this process has to be changed to keep Article 2 officials accountable to the Article 2 authority. Keep it inside the executive branch, the president or his designees, like the attorney general or something. Having judges appoint prosecutors who appear before them is bizarre. And in this case, it would have given Boasberg the chance to short-circuit Trump administration policy

[00:15:32] by perverting the constitutional order rather than addressing legal challenges through the impartial application of the law and the Constitution. And so what Morrissey was saying in the short term, the only way to address the absurdity is to confirm Martin. But if they can't get his nomination to the floor, Senate Majority Leader John Thune could still call a floor vote, but failing to get the committee approval makes that more problematic. The White House better have a plan B

[00:16:01] ready to go if this fails. And apparently it did. They'll be announcing somebody within the next two days. So score one for Tom Tillis over Donald Trump doesn't get the guy he wanted to run the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office. 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,

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[00:17:29] and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Got some messages regarding Tom Tillis and his blockage of the DC appointment for U.S. Attorney Ed Martin. From Russ, Tillis is ignorant on the J6 stuff. Really bad things were done that day, but if you can't easily differentiate at least three groups of offenders, then you've only seen the mainstream media reporting or the Trump is savior accounts.

[00:17:57] There were people in black block with improvised weapons, rowdy pro-Trump folks, and patriotic tourists, as well as other categories. I have seen in Shipwreck Crew, the lawyer for many of the J6ers, and others reporting stories of people being denied medication, being denied access to attorneys, being left in their underwear in dark, cold, solitary confinement. Yeah, there were a ton of allegations

[00:18:27] and not easily debunked, I might add, allegations of abuses of the J6ers when they were arrested and incarcerated. You know, pressure was brought to bear that if they don't take the deals, then, you know, the full weight of the federal government was going to come crashing down on them and their families would be destroyed, and so a lot of them took deals because their lawyers advised them to. And by the way, I've seen reports and comments

[00:18:56] from lawyers that were public defenders that were anti-Trump and were celebrating the fact that they got their clients to agree to sentences so they learned their lessons. Like, that's not being an advocate for your client. Good Wahoo says, like Richard Burr before him, Tom Tillis gets elected to Congress and then begins to take votes that make zero sense.

[00:19:26] Critical votes where he votes with the Democrats and against the wishes of his constituents. And the question is, why? Well, look at what happened with Richard Burr. That might be a clue for any real journalists looking to do some real investigative journalism. You'll recall Richard Burr was involved in the insider trading scandal right ahead of the pandemic. And I remember talking to an individual that shall remain nameless, but they were up in D.C.

[00:19:56] and they said, like, what was he thinking? Why would you do that? Especially somebody in his position for as long as he held it, like he knew better. Why would he do that? Well, then it raises the question of, well, was that just the first time he got caught? There is a Twitter account. She goes by the handle of Insurrectionist Barbie. So you know it's believable.

[00:20:26] But, well, let me start off by saying this. When Tillis came out and announced that he was blocking Ed Martin, that he was not going to be allowing him to get through the Judiciary Committee, which then put on the table the possibility that Judge Boesberg would be the one to appoint a replacement for that post, thus derailing the Trump agenda, Tom Tillis became the target of a nationwide campaign.

[00:20:56] You know, a lot of people are now aware of Tom Tillis in a way they were not before. And, you know, with the retirement of Mitch McConnell, there are a number of these Republican senators that are now getting examined for not being sufficiently MAGA or conservative, right, or on the team. Think John Cornyn. He's one. Tom Tillis is one now, too.

[00:21:27] And so the massive emailing and phone calling campaign that was launched to try to get him to flip his vote did not work. But now people are aware of him. And now I am wondering if this generates more campaign donations from out of state that flow into the GOP primary. As I understand it,

[00:21:56] Don Brown is running for the seat. He's already announced said he's going to run for it, I should say. And Don Brown ran for the congressional seat that Mark Harris won in the last congressional election. Don Brown, local author, veteran, and so he's going up against Tillis. I don't know if there's anybody else people are asking, like, why would he do this? I don't understand it.

[00:22:28] from a political strategy standpoint, Tillis' biggest challenge is going to be getting through the primary because he does pretty well in the general. And his positions on J6, I would submit, are part of the reason why. That if he were to switch his positions on J6, then I think he gets more flack from the left who can use that against him.

[00:22:58] Right? I think that's the political calculation on just that question. I'm not accusing him of making this decision to block Ed Martin based purely on that one issue and that political calculation, but you cannot deny that a political calculation is involved to some degree. So this account says, in February 2019, Tillis wrote a Washington Post op-ed opposing Trump's declaration of a national

[00:23:28] emergency to fund the border wall, arguing that it violated the Constitution's separation of powers. He eventually caved after pressure from his North Carolina voters. He also co-sponsored a bipartisan bill in 2018 to protect special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which, by the way, I was supportive of that too, because Mueller's investigation gave us more information. I want more. I want more information.

[00:23:57] I want more investigations. Like, yes, get people on the record. Get people under oath. The more you do that, the more you can find the inconsistencies and you can find new information and you get to the bottom of the situation. And what did Mueller's report end up finding? Nothing. And now you can use that as proof in your arguments, right? Next, Taylor's tried to tank the

[00:24:26] Hegseth nomination when he worked behind the scenes to oppose the nomination. He encouraged Hegseth's ex-sister-in-law to provide a sworn statement alleging alcohol abuse and spousal mistreatment, hoping to sway other GOP senators. So there is another read on that, by the way. There's another explanation for that, which is he is told by Hegseth's former sister-in-law about these accusations and his response to her is simply, all right, well,

[00:24:55] if this is what you're alleging, do an affidavit, a sworn statement, go under oath, do a statement, and make your allegations that way. Because if you're not going to go under oath and make the allegations, then these are basically worthless, which she did not do, if I recall correctly. She did not end up doing that. So it could be seen as a way to basically smoke her out. I don't know one way or the

[00:25:24] other, but there is another read on that situation. Tillis delivered a fiery Senate speech condemning Vladimir Putin as a liar and murderer and the greatest threat to democracy, implicitly rebuking Trump's take on the conflict and stated that he would not support Trump national security nominees who did not back Ukraine. And during the first impeachment in 2020, Tillis voted, or I guess that would be the last one in 2020, Tillis voted to acquit

[00:25:54] arguing the House case was weak, but he ran campaign ads emphasizing his opposition to removal, distancing himself from Trump's legal peril. He also supported the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which had the funding for the red flag laws, and now he stands in the way of confirming Ed Martin. So he has now gotten a lot of attention from outside of the state of North Carolina. Will it matter? Don't know. All right, so spring is here, a

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[00:27:22] at createavideo.com. North Carolina gun owners, listen up. If you have a concealed carry permit, you know the hassle of having to renew this thing every five years. Every five years, you've got to fill out the original application. It's like eight pages. You have to list every single address you've ever lived at. Think about that. That's crazy.

[00:27:54] Especially for a renewal. Because you already went through all of this. You went and took the class. You did the range time. You went through the background check. You did the mental health background check. You did all of this stuff. You got your permit. You haven't violated any laws. You haven't had it revoked or anything. And five years later now, you have to go and get another renewal. And you have to fill out all the paperwork again.

[00:28:23] And you've got to go through the background screenings again. You've got to pay the money for the renewal again. Even though your status hasn't changed. So the North Carolina state legislature, well, in the House, I should say, they passed yesterday. They had a flurry of activity. I'm going to go in depth on more of this tomorrow on a bunch of the different pieces of legislation that moved. So concealed carry handgun permit holders could soon

[00:28:53] have to apply only once if a bill in the state legislature becomes law. This is from the Charlotte Observer. The current law requires concealed carry permit holders to renew their permits every five years. Under House Bill 674, which passed the House yesterday evening, there would be a new lifetime concealed carry permit too. Holders of that permit would be able to keep it for life never again. Having to take another firearm safety and training course.

[00:29:23] Hey guys, you don't have to do that right now. See, this is what happens when people who don't know anything about firearms or concealed handgun permit process or anything. When they write stories, it's obvious that they don't know what they're talking about because when I go for a renewal of my permit, I don't have to retake the firearm training safety class. I don't have to do any of that again. I just have to submit all the paperwork again. They run the background checks again. They run the mental health

[00:29:52] background checks again. And that's it. I don't have to take the firearm safety and training course. You don't need to do that now. The bill passed 70 to 42 with mostly Republican votes and with some Democrats objecting to ending their renewal process. Representative Shelley Willingham, a Rocky Mount Democrat and retired law enforcement officer, voted in favor of the bill. So it's bipartisan, you would call that. But they don't. But it is.

[00:30:22] Republicans argue that the process is burdensome, it is, to permit holders and that some states require no permits at all. Something that has also been proposed for North Carolina. What they call constitutional carry. That's a separate bill. Democrat Representative Marsha Morey of Durham, a former judge who you would think might know the law, she says it's a lifetime. There could be a lot of changes over the course of your life. Like this five year renewal renewal is just

[00:30:52] a check to make sure the good guys with guns stay a good guy who's confident, who's safe and knows how to operate the gun and does not have any affliction that would be a danger to one's self or the public. So what this tells me is that she doesn't know the renewal process nor does she know about the revocation process. people who get concealed handgun permits want to

[00:31:22] keep those permits. They very much adhere to the laws so as to not lose their ability to have that permit. And if you beat up your spouse and get charged with such, you lose your permit. Like you get these things taken away for violating the law. So as long as you don't get it taken away, why should you have to keep renewing it? Representative Jay Adams at Catawba County

[00:31:52] Republican countered that somebody can go off the deep end two days after getting any permit or license and the permit doesn't prevent bad behavior. He's exactly right. I go out and get a concealed handgun permit, go through the whole process, get the permit, now I have it, and then I have a mental breakdown and, are we allowed to say that? Is that politically incorrect? Anyway, I have an episode and the permit doesn't stop me from doing something bad. In March, the Senate passed a bill along party lines that would allow somebody to carry a concealed handgun without a permit.

[00:32:22] House Speaker Destin Hall said Republicans do plan to take up the constitutional carry, the full repeal, this session. But he said whether we have a requirement for a permit in this state or not, they're still useful for folks because they get a permit here that they can use in other states. That's exactly right. So even in a constitutional carry state, I would still get that concealed handgun permit because I would want the ability to go to another state and still

[00:32:51] have a permit with reciprocity that they recognize in that state as well. So me personally, I would not utilize constitutional carry. I would still keep a permit. So a lifetime permit would be very, very awesome. 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

[00:33:20] at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendorshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone. Thank you.