RADIOFebruary 13, 2024

Could THIS new Senate bill DOOM a Trump presidency?

The Senate has passed its $95 billion “national security bill,” which Glenn believes should actually be called a foreign war bill. But if that isn’t bad enough, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) joins Glenn to warn that it would also give Democrats a powerful tool if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. Sen. Vance tells Glenn about a hidden clause in the bill that would give Democrats the ability to impeach Trump if he tries to stop funding Ukraine. Sen. Vance also explains what this bill’s $95 million is funding and why he’s shocked that so many Republicans voted for it. But he also discusses why he’s confident the House of Representatives can stop this.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Yeah. Let's talk to the senator, and find out exactly. J.D. Vance.

Thank you. I know you were on the floor at 4:00 a.m. Have you slept yet?

J.D.: I have not. But I'm still pretty fired up. So I'll sleep later, thank you.

GLENN: I bet. So tell us about this clause. This hidden clause.

J.D.: Well, so basically, if you go back to 2019, to understand this.

Using a weird, archaic rule, from the Impound Control Act.

The Democrats argued in 2019 that because money has been appropriated to Ukraine. Note the similarity, even though it's five years. Because the money has been appropriated to Ukraine.

And because Trump had refused to spend the money as appropriated. He actually violated the law. So what they've done with this lay here. Is appropriate money, not just through the end of 2024. But into '25 and into '26.

And so Trump, again, refused to give the money that was appropriated to Ukraine in exactly the manner described.

They would have not just the similar, but the exact same argument for impeaching him in 2025 as they did in 2019.

That would be absurd for -- but we shouldn't give the Democrats weapons, because they might stupidly use them.

We should just not give the Democrats weapons.

GLENN: So tell me where this speaking of weapons -- tell me where this money actually goes. Because they're saying, we are arming the Ukrainians. No, we've already done that. We've armed them.

And I'm sure some of this is for the military. But what else is are we funding in the 90 billion?

J.D.: Well, there's a lot of humanitarian assistance, not just to the Ukrainians, but also loads to the Gazans.

We know what happens with humanitarians close to Gaza. It very often ends up in the hands of Hamas.

So I guarantee, that at least a few dollars of their taxpayer money will flow to Gaza.

On the Ukrainian side, we have to remember, that the humanitarians are actually the biggest source of corruption.

We've heard for example, from American energy companies, that have tried to do business to Ukraine.

That the Ukrainian humanitarian assistance is handed out in the form of sweetheart contracts.

To Ukrainian oligarchs and the companies that they have. Heavily in favor --

GLENN: Of course, it is. We've documented this forever.

Forever. I mean, if you don't know it by now, you're -- you're -- I mean, you're just blind to the truth.

And you're just a reckless senator.

J.D.: Yeah. That's exactly right.

We know exactly what's going on.

We know it's a corrupt country.

We know that, yes. There's some money in this package. To rebuild the American weapons supplies.

But, remember, we have -- we give so much discretion in the Congress to Joe Biden, using what's called Presidential Drawdown Authority, or PDA.

That the president will immediately take the weapons that are produced for our own stock, and then just hand them over to Ukraine.

So this is a massive boondoggle. We know it will benefit a lot of corrupt parties. And importantly, we know it will continue this war, which I think is just not in America's -- I think there's strategy. There's no plan to bring this thing to a close.

I'm really just scandalized with just how many Republicans voted for this. Given the impeachment time bomb that we discussed. Given how endless the Ukraine War is. Given that Joe Biden is the commander-in-chief.

One of the arguments that I hear from my friends on the pro-Ukraine funding side is saying, well, we should be doing this, this, this, and this.

And I always say, well, why do you have any confidence that Joe Biden will do any of these things? Given how incompetent his administration is. We don't have President Donald Trump, or even President Tom Cotton in the Oval Office.

We have a President Joe Biden. And we have to make public policy, because we live in reality.

GLENN: So what's going to happen now?

The bill passed.

J.D.: Well, the one thing I will say, Glenn. It's always bad, when your enemies gain territory. Sometimes they can gain victory.

Because they gained territory at a lot of loss.

I mean, we really, I think, inflicted damage in the messaging battle yesterday. With the ultimate goal of spending so much time on the House floor and filibustering as long as we did.

The House I think is really radicalized in the legislation.

The only way, really the only way for it to pass in the House, is for Republicans, to cooperate with Democrats.

To give the floor over to Hakeem Jeffries. It's called a discharge position.

Look, we have to make sure this doesn't happen. In fact, any Republican who cooperates in handing the floor to Steve Jeffries, to get an immediate primary, and to be persona non grata in the Republican Party. So that is the next stage of the fight.

We have much, much better terrain for that fight in the house.

Because we have the majority. We will see what happens, Glenn. I'm optimistic. That they killed this first bill.

GLENN: Well, I hope it continues.

I just -- you know, there's so much misinformation on -- by the government. That this was a border bill. This last one was a border bill.

No, it wasn't. It was an immigration bill. And nobody except Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden have been asking for an immigration bill. America has rejected that over and over and over again.

Comprehensive immigration reform. That's not what we were asking for. We were asking for the border to be secured.

Now. Does it look like anything will happen on that front?

J.D.: Well, unless the House really stands their ground.

Again, what we should say to the president, is you don't get another (inaudible) to Ukraine, unless you actually secure the border. That's sort of a basic operating presumption. We won't even consider bills, to give money to Ukraine, unless you secure the border. We really need the House to sort of stand firm on this point.

I think they have a chance. Again, they have the majority. And they have the willpower here. Again, it's going to be a question of how many Republicans they can find, after voters in the back.

Unfortunately, they're -- there are a few out there. We know that.

Hopefully, there are not enough, in the House, to do it.

And to give Hakeem Jeffries control of the floor.

GLENN: I remember -- I remember September 11th.

I have absolutely no idea, what we were talking about, the day before. But all of it was irrelevant.

I don't know if you heard the sheriff of Butler County, Richard Jones. But he said, he was briefed along with the other sheriffs at the National Sheriffs Association, by Christopher Wray last week.

And Christopher Wray scared the sheriff's association to their core, it sounds. Saying, that we're -- we have a terrorist attack that is imminent.
Everything changes.

And I don't know how every Republican, or even just how every sellout, that just only cares about reelection.

Is missing, that because of these open borders, and because of what we're doing, in Ukraine. And with Taiwan.

And -- and Israel or Iran.

We are ripe for the taking! For -- for terrorist attacks.

And when that happens, these guys will not fare well at the polls.

They're just not.

J.D.: No, they're not. Sheriff Jones is a good guy, I know.

Butler County is actually where I was born and raised, Butler County, Ohio.

And so he is -- he is dead right, unfortunately.

We're at the greatest risk of a terrorist attack in this country, in at least 20 years.

We know there are many thousands of people, who are at least suspected on the terrorist watch list.

At least a few hundred of them are definitely terrorists.

They're in our country.

We have no reason why.

We have no reason planning.

And this is unfortunately, the consequence of Joe Biden's open border.

I, of course, hope that nothing happens.

GLENN: Me too.

J.D.: And I think we have to do whatever we can. To prevent as many bad people as we can, from coming into the country.

And we also have to prepare, and I think unfortunately, we have a lot of bad dudes in this country right now.

You know what I always notice, Glenn? Is these people always argue, meaning the open borders folks. They always say, this is about asylum. These people were fleeing political persecution.

And you look at the people allegedly claiming asylum.

And they're all between the ages of 20 and 35. I tend to remember from my history, that when political persecution is happening, it's the women and children who are the most affected by it, not the 25 to 35-year-old military aged men. So it's pretty frightening stuff.

GLENN: Yep.

Thank you, J.D., I appreciate it. Go get some sleep.

J.D. Vance, the senator from Ohio, who has been up all night trying to stop this bill in the Senate, along with a handful of others. And I thank every single one of them for doing their job.

This is a wrong-headed bill.

It is -- I don't know how, but it will be discovered at some point.

Who enriched themselves?

What NGOs enriched themselves?

What politicians enriched themselves?

Where did all this money go actually?

It will be revealed. It's just a matter of time.

EXCLUSIVE: Chip Roy Explains His FIERY Rejection of Spending Bill

According to the media, there’s a big fight going on between Republicans over the House’s new slimmed-down continuing resolution spending bill. Some, including President-elect Donald Trump, wanted the bill to pass. But others, like Texas Representative Chip Roy, argued that it still wasn’t ready. However, is the Republican “unity coalition” really crumbling, like the media claims? Rep. Chip Roy joins Glenn to explain what’s really going on. He argues that he IS trying to give Trump and DOGE a 100-day “runway” to fix the country. But he makes the case that, by increasing the debt ceiling by $5 trillion without agreeing on other cuts, this bill gives bad actors the ability to be an “obstacle” to Trump’s agenda further down the line. Plus, he reveals to Glenn that he believes some of these bad actors LEAKED false information about his stance to Mar-a-Lago.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN:

I think we have a great opportunity today. To show you how to have a -- tough conversation, with friends, friends. Where you deeply disagree on something.

But you know that their intent is good. They know my intent is good. Or our intent is good.

And we actually have the same end goal, but we disagree on the path. And we're going to walk away friends.

Chip Roy is joining us today. And, Chip, I love you. And I always will. And I agree with your, we've got to cut spending. We have to. But Liz Wheeler is with me. And we've been talking about it all morning. It's the -- the -- the -- the system of DOGE and Trump, the call-out to the world, in saying, you've got to surrender the Capitol. You know, the bad guys are in and about to take all the money.

Surround, and tell them, come out with your hands up. And that happened. And we scored a massive win, in an entirely new way.

Ask then you stood on principle, one we both agree with.

And it failed!

And so here's -- here's what Liz and I were talking about. Here's what we want to say to you.

And then get your response.

LIZ: Hi, Congressman Roy, this is the way I see it. I want your take on it. I love you. I think you're one of the best members of Congress. I disagree with you on the process that's happening. And I think that is the difference. The process. We elected Donald Trump to be a disruptor. Because Republican members of Congress for decades have been telling they're fiscal conservatives. They want to decrease the debt SEAL. It hasn't happened.

It hasn't -- it hasn't been done. And so Donald Trump comes in with Elon Musk, and uses this DOGE process to first identify these pieces of garbage in the first 1500-page bill. And take those things to the people. We took them to members of Congress. Congress said, okay. We'll listen to you.

So that new process was very effective.

And my question to you is: Once that process was proved to be effective. Which I think is exciting and wonderful.

How do we bridge this divide, with you, to say, okay.

Let's put some faith in this new process. And trust Elon Musk and Donald Trump and the Dow Jones process, to eventually address the debt ceiling, but get this done right now?

GLENN: And not blind trust. Chip.

CHIP: So appreciate you guys. Appreciate being on the show. Particular order. I have to go through a couple of things.

GLENN: Yep.

CHIP: Number one, it's important to remember that my job and my duty is to the Constitution, to God, and the people I represent. I told them, when I came to Washington, I would not -- I would not let the credit card and the debt ceiling and the borrowing of the United States without the spending restraints necessary to offset it.

GLENN: Okay.

CHIP: Right now, all we have are promises and ideas and notions. What I know, that neither of you respectfully no, and that none of your listeners respectfully no are the people that are in the room, that I was in with yesterday. And the day before, who are recalcitrant.

And do not want to do the spending cuts that we need to do.

That I believe the president and the DOGE guys. And everybody want to do.

My job, is to force that through the meat grinder. To demand that we do our damn job. Okay?

GLENN: Okay. So hang on. Okay. So wait. Wait. You're right. You're right. You're right. Go ahead.

CHIP: Number thee, when we were going through the bill, I'm glad the bill dropped from 1,550 pages to 116 pages. Three-quarters of Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it, have been out there spreading false facts that we supported a bad bill and didn't like the better bill.

That's not true. But let's be Lear. The 1400 pages that were cut out. It's a panacea.

There were some good stuff in there. There were some bad stuff in there. There was a lot of disinformation.

There wasn't a $70,000 pay raise. There was a 3,000-dollar pay raise.

I didn't support any pay raise. I didn't support a lot of the stuff in there.

But there's a lot of misinformation. And here's the thing: The 116 pages that were left, and I opposed violently the first bill. I was leading the charge on fighting and killing the first bill.

GLENN: And I love you.

LIZ: The second bill for 116 pages. Turned off -- turned off the pay go requirement. That we slash 1.7 trillion automatically.

And added a 5 trillion that are increase.

My view was, I could not support that, without a clear understanding of what cuts we would get, in mandatory spending next year. And undo any of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The undoing of the student loans. The undoing of the crap with the food stamps.

And everything else. I yield back.

GLENN: Okay. I yield back.

Chip, you're not in a hostile room. We love you. And we agree with your end goals. It's our end goal too. We didn't make that promise that you made to the people that voted for you. So we have more wiggle room here.

But you say -- I think our big difference is, you say, I know the guys in the room.

You're right. You do. And we -- we ceded that earlier today on the show.

You are -- one of us is wrong on trust.

I don't trust any of the weasels in Washington.

But I think Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have earned enough trust, to get a grace period, here for the first -- maybe the first year.

Or at least six months.

To turn the economy around, and also reduce the size of the government.

And totally flip this thing.

And I know, as somebody who is -- you know, run a company, mainly into a ground. But run a company, and have to switch it, in the middle, and totally reshuffle. That -- that actually costs money, while you're doing it, to bridge the gap.

Because you have to fill up holes while you're filling in the gap.

You don't trust the people in the room. Neither do we.

But we do trust the system that worked on Wednesday with DOGE and Donald Trump.

Where do we disagree?

Can you give them --

CHIP: We don't disagree. And yesterday morning, I was making that precise argument in a room full of conservatives and then a follow-up room with people who will call it, less conservatives.

GLENN: Republican. Yes.

CHIP: And so we were making this argument. And then someone infamously. Something leaked out of the room, somehow out to Mar-a-Lago. That I was being resistant. Because I was negotiating trying to get the agreement to achieve the objective that you just said. I was trying to get, okay. In fact, yesterday morning, I made the argument to a group of conservatives. We need to give the president runway. We need to give him his first 100 days. We need to appreciate JD, and Vivek, and all the people -- and everybody involved. For the president to achieve the objective.

But to get there. We have to make sure that the guys in the room, that are an obstacle to that, don't have the ability to block it.

Because information flow matters. And when those guys tell the president, they can't achieve X.

Then the president will not achieve X. Our job was to force and demand, guys, we need actual understanding of what the cuts will be.

And because otherwise, we're asking us to accept a 5 trillion-dollar limit in our credit card increase. In exchange for nothing!

Literally, in exchange for nothing, but -- but hope.

So our job was to force that change.

Unfortunately, while I was trying to make the argument that we needed something in order to get the votes, someone leaked that down to Mar-a-Lago, and the president reacted.

But now I have to now manage that.

GLENN: Right. I know. I know.

CHIP: They're trying to enforce change in town.

GLENN: So hang on.

We have to leave this. Because I'm going to run against the clock.

I could talk to you all day about this. You were in a meeting this morning about J.D. Vance. Can you tell us anything about that meeting?

CHIP: That meeting happened, because despite what happened yesterday, I'm trying to get this done. Last night, talking to JD, we worked to get this meeting done. We had some good progress this morning.

But there still remains people concerned about spending. That we can work out, what agreement we can reach. On what spending cuts. We can actually get next year, in exchange for giving the vote on a debt ceiling increase.

So it remains fluid. Progress was made. But we have to keep working on it.

And I left that meeting to talk to you. Soil get an update in a minute.

GLENN: Thank you for that, by the way.

I hear there is a new bill that may be coming today.

Is that the one you're talking about?

Or is this another bill that could be another nightmare?

CHIP: Despite other people leaking crap, I refused. I can't say, because it's not been decided by the speaker.

And it's not right to talk about things they're talking about in private meetings.

GLENN: Yeah, but it's -- it's this speaker. I mean, is he really the speaker anymore, Chip, really?

CHIP: We need to hear what bill we need to get forward. And I can't talk about the private meetings. But, look, I'm going to keep fighting for what I promised people that I represent.

I'm going to fight to cut spending. I am going to represent article one.

I'm going to support the president's agenda, but we've got to do that together.

GLENN: Okay.

Chip, thank you.

I think we can -- I think we agree, but I await to see what that means to you. Because we may just have to agree to disagree on this.

But I love you. And I still want you to replace Cornyn.

CHIP: The short version is, for inflation's sake, we cannot increase the debt ceiling $5 trillion without knowing what we're getting for it.

And I don't think anybody should disagree with that.

GLENN: But you don't disagree that Elon Musk and Trump and Vivek are serious about gutting the system.

CHIP: I believe that is their objective. I believe there are obstacles to that objective. And I need to know the sincerity of how we deal with those obstacles, both structural, and human. And we have to figure that out. And that's my job.