Trump has the high ground in USAID fight (02-11-2025--Hour2)

[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, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] So the courts are trying to slow Donald Trump down, but trust the process. OK, trust the process. This is the advice from retired U.S. Army Colonel Kurt Schlichter. He is a trial lawyer from out in California. He's a columnist at townhall.com. I think he's also got a podcast as well because, you know, everybody does. But also, he's a great guy.

[00:00:57] I've interviewed him several times over the years. Really nice guy. Very smart. Army War College guy. So he knows what he's talking about. I mentioned he's a trial lawyer. And also, he's done some stand-up comedy. So he says, stop panicking about all of the stupid legal decisions from leftist judges that the left is getting from judge shopping in leftist cities.

[00:01:27] The administration. The administration is not rolling over. He says, since we have to have this fight. This is the time and the battleground to have it. I've said this for years. Walk towards the fight. OK, if you make the decision to get into this arena. Right. I am in the arena. If you're listening to this program, you're probably if you're not in the arena yourself, you are like at least

[00:01:57] like first five rows in the stands. You're right there in the action. OK, you are. Participant adjacent. OK. And if you make the decision to get involved and to and I welcome like everybody to get involved. This this republic only works. A free society. Self-governing only works.

[00:02:19] If good, competent people volunteer. Volunteer. Volunteer to help. And I think it's a huge mistake that conservatives have made for a very long time, which is to just kind of retreat. And I'll just take care of myself and I'll take care of my family and I'll focus on my church and local activities. And look, all of that stuff is important. Don't get me wrong. But.

[00:02:42] If you are abandoning the larger field. Then you're you're giving it over to your political opponents. Right. And you may not care about politics, but politics cares about you. So. If you are in the arena, walk towards the fight. And so that's what Colonel Schlichter is advising. And I completely agree. Right. He says we have to have the fight.

[00:03:12] This is the time to have it. And this is the battleground to fight it on. He said we want he says we want it settled right at the beginning of the administration so that we don't have to deal with this down the road. We want to fight on these orders, these executive orders, because one, they are manifestly the result of bad faith shopping, judge shopping. And the opinions themselves are both manifestly. Procedural and substantively ridiculous.

[00:03:42] They are legal jokes, he says. Don't listen to the dummy lawyers on Twitter. Only listen to me. I told you he's done comedy. Only listen to me or the people I tell you that you can rely on. Everybody telling you these are reasoned, valid legal decisions is either a legal illiterate or they think you're stupid. The way this fight is happening is to our advantage.

[00:04:09] But wait, you ask, we're getting all these decisions against us. How can that be good? He says, because they are leaving the Supreme Court no choice. OK, people want Trump to sound off about this, but he doesn't need to. What's left unstated is the fact that he can just not obey these manifestly improper orders. He could just not obey them.

[00:04:37] They say that that makes it some sort of a constitutional crisis. That's what they say. He says, but it becomes a real one when they push Trump too far. He's not going to submit forever to micromanagement of the executive branch by activist district court judges in blue cities across America. And here's the key.

[00:05:07] Chief Justice John Roberts knows it. Roberts and the majority of the court know these are ridiculous legally. And the last thing they want to do is stake the credibility of the court on this kind of nonsense. They're not going to jump on the grenade that is these decisions. There might someday be a fight with the president about something where he is legally in the wrong. But this is not that time. This is not the hill the Supreme Court will die on.

[00:05:36] Wisely, Trump is not adding fuel to the fire by threatening to do what is what it's very clear he can do, which is to disobey these lower court rulings. This provides the Supreme Court the cover that it needs to deal with these upstart district courts without looking like Trump strong armed the Supreme Court. So relax. Let the process go forward.

[00:06:03] He says we're going to win on all of these injunctions and I expect fairly quickly. All right. So. And I trust Colonel Schlichter on this stuff like he generally is correct about this about this kind of thing. So there is a larger strategy playing out. Let me go over and chat with Marty. Hello, Marty. Welcome to the program. Hey, Pete. I hope you're doing well.

[00:06:33] Yes, sir. It's cold out here today. Yeah. This is what I call second winter. It is. Yeah. I had a kind of a question and I think you answered it already. But first of all, I think the colonel's right. I think it does play out. I'll go to the Supreme Court and Trump come out ahead and there'll be a good ruling on it. But it's always been a defense for the Democrats to use courts anyway because we don't have the popular opinions.

[00:06:56] But the courts that are ruling, are they federal courts or are they district courts? They are. I believe they are. I mean, there's five of them, I think, at this point. I believe they are all federal courts, but they are at the district level. Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, let me ask a question and I don't know, but maybe you will.

[00:07:17] Is it possible that Trump, being president, executive, could he reassign these judges to different locations or jurisdictions? I don't believe so. I think that, I mean, there are processes for removing judges, but I think it's pretty limited, like the reasons for doing so. If I recall, it's been a really long time since I did anything that I looked into any of that at all. And I can't even remember how long ago it was. It was so long ago.

[00:07:47] Yeah. I don't think he can. Yeah, it'd be wonderful if they could take the, I guess, conservative areas and reassign those judges to those locations and then take the ones that are in those jurisdictions making these crazy rulings, using it as, you know, a Democrat ideology, I guess. Well, you can have. I think so. I think what's going to play out is that the U.S. Supreme Court will step in and and they will.

[00:08:15] And there's a thing called mandamus, which is where, like, you get the court to to come in and intercede, I think.

[00:08:24] And so I think to have the Supreme Court smack down these lower court judges and to do so swiftly and brutally sends the message and then sets the the well, not precedent, but it sets the directive that, like, the president can do these things, you know, and then all of the other lower courts have to fall in line with that.

[00:08:48] Now, if they do not, I don't know if there's like some sort of judicial standards review or something that occurs that gets them tossed out. But I suspect a lot of them would not try to cross the Supreme Court to do so. It'd be a waste of their time. But, you know, if if if it were possible, it'd be nice to see those justices reassigned to northern Alaska somewhere, wouldn't it? I hear there's a big demand for leftist judges in, yes, the outer hinterlands in Alaska.

[00:09:18] There you go. All right, Marty, I appreciate the call. Yeah, I don't I don't remember what I like I said, I think you got to be you got to be on the take. You got to be a corrupted judge with, you know, video evidence, I think, in order to get removed from a bench. But I don't remember. Here's a great idea. Yep. 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.

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[00:11:07] I mean, it's just, this is such a loser of a position, Democrats. But kind of on brand, I guess, now that I'm saying it. All right, let's go to the phones. This is Mike. Welcome to the program. Hello, Mike. Hi, how are you? Hey, I'm well. What's going on?

[00:11:25] I just heard your previous caller and the idea that because a federal district court judge doesn't agree with the caller, that they would somehow move them around so that they would be... Punished. So that they wouldn't count. No, it's not that they wouldn't count. It's to punish them.

[00:11:55] Yeah, whatever it is. You know, we live in a democracy. And we don't... The fact that we don't like what a district court judge might settle on, for whatever reason, read our Constitution and understand how our government works.

[00:12:20] And if you don't like the opinion of a federal court judge who was appointed by a certain president, then you vote for somebody else. Right. Okay. So what is... Mike, what's your opinion on judge shopping? Do you know what that means? Oh, sure. Yeah. Right. Okay. So what's your opinion on judge shopping? Well, I don't know that it's something that should be allowed to be done.

[00:12:52] They do it at the local level. For court cases where somebody might be less favorable or more favorable. Right. Yeah. Right. So if you have a judge... All right. So if you have a judge that has a reputation and a lifelong appointment, and they've got a reputation of bending the law, bending interpretations in order to aid and

[00:13:19] abet a particular philosophy, is there no recourse to take against that judge for issuing rulings that are constantly overturned by higher courts because of their legal infirmities? All right. Exactly. And judges are graded as well. I don't know if federal district court judges have a lifetime appointment,

[00:13:47] but that's what we vote for, is to have that idea removed. I don't like what happens in the 9th District Court on the West Coast. Yeah. Well, I think most of these are coming out of, like, D.C. area. Right. So if a judge keeps on issuing rulings that are not legal, that are constitutionally unsound,

[00:14:15] right, that are constantly overturned because of their deficiency, then that judge, there's no way to punish that judge? There's no way to say this guy's off the rails? Well, sure it is. What would you like to see as that repercussion? What should the punishment be? Whoever is responsible for that area in terms of judges, then let those people make that decision.

[00:14:45] And, I mean, we can't... So a chief, like a chief district judge, so you'd be okay with, like, a chief district judge that would say, hey, you know, you keep doing these rulings that keep getting overturned because you're just making up stuff and you're not following the law, and so we're going to... So I'm going to, like, remove you from the bench? You'd be all right with that kind of a process? Certainly, if that's the process that is in place.

[00:15:15] And... Well, I don't know what... Right. I don't know what process is in place, but it seems like you disagree with the concept of an administration moving judges into different districts because they're not satisfied with the way they're behaving, but you are okay with a chief judge removing somebody from the bench because they don't like the way they're behaving. Is that...

[00:15:40] Well, whatever the process that the court system uses, then, yeah. And if it's not what you agree with, well, then you write to your senators and you write to your representatives and you can engage that way. Right, but the judges are appointed by the... Right, but the judges get appointed at the federal level by the president, by the administration. So, and to be clear, I don't know what... When you say whatever that process is,

[00:16:09] I don't know what that process is. It doesn't seem like there even is one because there are judges that have been making terrible rulings for a very long time and they never suffer any kind of repercussions for it. So that's... So I don't know if just saying, well, you know, whatever the process is, we just let that play out, whatever that might be, because it obviously is not... It's not sufficient. But, Mike, I appreciate the call. And look, I understand the concern about having, you know, an administration come in and start reassigning people,

[00:16:39] but... And I know that's not the current process, but there has to be a way if you've got a judge that keeps doing this to the point where everybody knows, take your case to that guy because he's going to give us the ruling that we want. Like, that's a problem. I appreciate the call, Mike. All right. I hope you had a happy holiday season, but tell me if something like this happened at your house. Your family and friends are gathered around. Maybe y'all are in the living room. You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then somebody says,

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[00:18:08] From Karen, who says, Representative Eli Crane from Arizona is drawing up articles of impeachment against one of these judges. So that is one way to go, right? Impeach the judge to get them removed. And Tommy said regarding the last caller, Mike, we are a republic, not a democracy. Are they twisted or brainwashed that they don't know this country was founded on? Well, it's a democratic republic. Like, we elect people democratically.

[00:18:37] So, like, I know people, they fixate on this word, and they always say, we're a democratic, you know, constitutional republic, and all of that. But we still employ a democratic method in that constitutional republic. And people shorthand it due to corruption of the vocabulary. But there are democratic principles at play. Lowercase d, democratic principles. And that's the mechanism we use. So, like, I know people get very upset when they hear that.

[00:19:07] I just, and you heard me, like, I went, ugh, when I heard Mike say it. But, but I, like, it's a shorthand, and it wasn't central to his argument, and so I just moved on. Now, I mentioned a thing called a mandamus. Yes. Margo Cleveland, she is a lawyer and a professor, and she writes over at thefederalist.com. And, um, there are temporary restraining orders,

[00:19:37] or TROs, that have been implemented to prevent the administration from enacting their executive orders, from carrying them out, so it restrains them from doing so temporarily, a temporary restraining order. She says, normally you cannot appeal those, but, a mandamus is basically a lawsuit filed against a judge in the appellate court. So, one court above the district court. So, you go for a writ of mandamus to essentially

[00:20:06] file a lawsuit against the judge, the lower court judge, saying that the judge acted without authority, and then, if you win that, if the appeals court agrees with you, it tells the lower court judge to stop doing what he or she is doing. And, this order applies to all federal funding way beyond authority. Um, do you remember a guy named Rui Teixeira? Remember that name?

[00:20:36] It's spelled T-E-I-X-E-I-R-A. Rui Teixeira. Teixeira. Whatever. Texiera. Whatever. Um, Rui, R-U-I is his first name. He was the guy that wrote the book, literally, Demographics is Destiny. That was the, that was his argument, right? That as old white conservative people die, and we have a rising, uh, diverse population,

[00:21:05] that once whites are no longer in the majority, then Democrats will basically rule for a billion years or something, right? Like, that was, uh, the Demographics is Destiny, um, theory that Democrats were relying on for the last 20 years. I remember when this was first pitched. So then came, you know, within the last five years or so, you've heard the great replacement theory and then the Democrats and media, but I repeat myself, we're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe they're saying that. But that's what they were arguing for.

[00:21:33] Let's replace all of the white people because they vote Republican. That was the strategy. Okay? So Rui Teixeira, Democrat guy, he's, he's now warning his allies that they are marching themselves off a political cliff with their all in defense of USAID's unaccountable spending. He writes over at the free press, free press or FP.com, I think, um,

[00:22:02] Trump occupies the high ground in this fight, which is probably why he and Musk picked it. Now, I have heard that the reason why USAID actually came onto the radar so quickly was because when they first set out and told everybody freeze all the funding, nobody do anything. And USAID basically put the spotlight on themselves because they refused to turn over any information. They said,

[00:22:32] we're going to keep sending out all of this money, right? They obstructed and they were like the first ones to do so. And then when they tried to go in there, remember one of their USAID chiefs or something tried to physically block people from getting into the building. And so that's what put them on the radar first, but it just so happens that they are like the poster child here for this kind of waste and fraud. If voters to share rights, if voters dislike anything,

[00:23:01] it's bureaucracy and foreign aid, right? And USAID is a 10,000 employee bureaucracy housed in a palatial building on prime downtown real estate that spends $40 billion a year on other countries. So the two things that American voters dislike the most USAID checks both of those boxes.

[00:23:27] And the position Democrats are trying to stake out here is not going to win them a lot of favor among voters. 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.

[00:23:55] So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news.com. 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.ground.news.com.

[00:24:24] Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15% 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. To the phones we go. Let's talk with Tony. Tony, good to hear from you. I think I haven't spoken with you since the election. How are you doing? Hey, good, Pete. How are you doing today, sir? I'm good. You're all right. I just know it like it's been a while.

[00:24:55] Oh, yeah, I'm fine, man. Okay, good. Good. Now, I was calling about the, what is it called? The USAID? Is that, is that the funding that America gives to other countries? Yeah, that's one of them. Yeah. Okay, so how much, how much, are they cutting that whole thing out? Everything? Well, they're looking, well, they were looking through, so they, they, they went in there and they started looking through where the grants were going, where the funding was going. And, uh, what,

[00:25:24] what Musk said was like, we, you know, it's not like, I think he, he gave the analogy of like, uh, uh, it's not, they were looking for the worms in the apple, but there is no apple. It's all just worms. That's what he said. So, um, yeah, so like whatever. So at a $40 billion, it sounds like the vast majority of it has been going out the door to fund programs that are not aligned with the intention of the program, which is to give, you know, aid to,

[00:25:54] you know, struggling countries or people that are affected by disasters, like sending rice and wheat and corn and, and food and medical supplies and that kind of stuff. They're not doing a lot of that kind of work. They're doing a lot of other stuff like, you know, covert operations with the CIA to overthrow governments. Like that's probably not in line with the original intent of USAID. Oh, wow. Okay. So don't get any of that money. Then what's that? Israel doesn't get any of that money.

[00:26:24] Then I have not seen, no, I have not seen Israel, uh, on any of the lists. Uh, I did see Ireland, which like, why are we giving Ireland any money? That doesn't make any sense. Um, okay. So, so where does Israel get the money from it? Where is that? What, what, what treasure is that coming out of? Uh, more than likely, I would say it's probably coming out of the defense department budget. The defense department. Yeah, I think so. That's if I had to guess, but I don't know that Tony, I'm just, I'm guessing. So,

[00:26:53] but I would guess it's coming out of defense. Okay. Well, I thought you might've known that because I, you know, cause they get billions and billions of dollars. You know what I mean? So that's something that, well, they get, they get, well, I don't know if they get direct money. I think they get military assistance. I think they get, but so like, and this is just like with Ukraine. Um, like we say you're getting, you know, a hundred billion dollars in aid, but it's military assistance.

[00:27:20] And so that hundred billion dollars is going to military contractors, usually in America. And then the products that they manufacture get sent to Ukraine. That's not all the, that's not all the time. There is some, there are some cash movements obviously too, but a lot, when they talk about military assistance, that's, that's what they're talking about. You know, I wonder why America could get that much money, uh, in military aid or whatever, if they can get money and cash to all these foreign companies,

[00:27:50] but can't help the poor people in America. That is, I don't get that. Right. And that's the question that, that Trump is asking. That's the question that, that Republicans are asking. Why are we giving all of this money to other countries? When like, we have people living in tents in Western North Carolina after a flood, right? That's or, or in Los Angeles after a fire, right? Where's. Oh no, you're talking about disasters. I'm just talking about everyday people that are struggling in our country that can't get housing,

[00:28:19] can't get food, but you don't want to help them. And you're sending out billions of dollars to these other countries. I don't, I don't get that. No, you sound, no, that's, that's literally Tony. You're literally saying the thing that MAGA is saying. As far as helping poor people. Yeah. They're saying, why is this money going to foreign countries and not Americans? That's literally what they're saying. When did they say we were going to help poor people? When did they say that? Cause I missed out. What do you mean? When did they say we're going to help poor people? They literally, they,

[00:28:49] they said, you said, Tony, you said that the money shouldn't be going over there. It should be staying here to help Americans. And that's what MAGA is saying as well. And that is, they don't differentiate poor, rich, whatever. They're just saying the money needs to stay here. Okay. So, so, so what you're saying is that a MAGA is saying that the money that is going out to these foreign countries needs to stay in America to help Americans out. Right? Correct. Okay. Now, uh,

[00:29:19] are we talking about Americans that don't need help or we're talking about Americans that need help? They have, they have not just, I have not heard somebody say in the MAGA movement ever that we need to keep the money here to help people that don't need the money. I've never heard anybody make that argument. The idea is that the money needs to stay here to help people that need the help. That's, I always, I, that, that's been the implication. Exactly. Now, what does that look like to you? How did, how did, how did, how are they going to do, how would they do,

[00:29:49] how is MAGA doing that? They're helping poor people in our country. How, what agency are they using to do that? Where's that at? Uh, probably social security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps. No, no, no, no, no. That's already, that's, that's already in, uh, that's already in effect. Yeah, but they're underfunded. No, but the Tony, they're underfunded. They're going to go bankrupt soon. They're going to go bankrupt. Yeah. Okay. So, so listen, I'm all for that. If they're going to,

[00:30:19] if they're going to say, Hey, listen, we're going to take this money away from, from, from these foreign countries that don't like us anyway. Right. They don't like you anyway. You know that, don't you? Right. No, none of them like us. No, that's the whole point is, and, and no, that's the whole point. That's the whole message that MAGA. So welcome to the MAGA movement, Tony. The latest addition to MAGA is Tony. I'm as surprised as you. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:30:45] 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, the Pete calendar show.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.