Good morning, already for a good conversation, we are going to talk about impeachment. Ukraine all of it. Lets get into it, i want to talk start with congressman ratcliffe, great opportunity. Great to see a. Ready you want to talk about a guy who has to hes really into it he has to work with adam schiff every day. I hear you. Do you ever blood and when you see him . This is national tv right, let me start on the issue of impeachment, we went through it, the country went through, it the presidency and states went through it, one of the lessons from . It well vince, i think the most important lesson is something that you hear often, elections have consequences, what we saw for the first two years of the trump presidency, is democrat talked about, wanting to impeach the president. And theyre tempted you that let the 2018 election they give the control of the house given the opportunity to act for the first time and very clearly, as you point out, the nation wants that. And i think one of the things, as people look at this, impeachment why they, say it was unprecedented and unlike anything that has ever happened in our, country i think the most compelling thing is when you look at the nixon impeachment, the former impeachment itself, it lasted 168 days and from the very first for the very last day, president nixons lawyers have the ability to assess evidence, to a real evidence, to call witnesses, to cross examine witnesses, the same was true with respect to president clinton, from the very first day until the very last day his lawyers were allowed to do all of those same things, what is unique about this is that the trump impeachment inquiry lasted 78 days and for the first 71 days, President Trumps lawyers were forbidden from participating, from seeing evidence, reviewing as it, incest assessing evidence, calling witnesses cross examining witnesses, a complete deprivation of due process that has never happened before and as you know in the system of american jurisprudence where, no matter what kind of trial it, is somebody that is accused should have the ability to confront their accusers and present their case and defend themselves. And this president was deprived of that throughout. And it just lowered the bar for what we are going to see in this country down the road, i dont think you can put the genie back in the bottle, and unfortunately, we are going to see the impeachment resurfaced down the road, and people are going to, say well, look what happened during the Trump Administration. This thing is obviously rushed. They even have the opportunity, if they wanted, to despite how the arrangement was unfair on the president s defense. They didnt send subpoenas. One of the few times that they did try with charlie kupperman, or with john bolton, he goes to court, he goes to court and says wait, i want to know what my privilege, azar and adam schiff immediately withdraw the subpoena says, i dont need you to testify. That is a bizarre arrangement for a guy whos trying to get to the bottom of the information. It was obviously a charade from the beginning. And the entire time, this entire process always said more about Nancy Pelosis job than it ever said about Donald Trumps job. This was all about nancy pelosi getting in front of the circus, because she had completely lost control of the caucus. And my concern as somebody who is conservative, not a republican, is, we need a positive, strong, intelligent opposition party. That tension is very. Good we do not have that right now we have a lunatic in charge of the Democratic Party. And it is very dangerous, because the only way the parties can be honest is if both sides are at least beginning the same language. And have the same semblance of truth, the other thing that the congressman just said that i think is so important about the elections, is that they have consequences, thats true about 2018, and its true with about 2020, and its true about 2022. Because you are, right the genius out of the bottle, but it is not just for tender years down the road. The genie is out of the bottle for two years down the road. If President Trump wins reelection and then democrats managed to win the senate, he will get impeached again. And i suspect there will be i dont think they will have enough to remove him. But there could easily be a swell of republicans who decide to bail out during a part of his presidency. So you look at Bernie Sanders and you, think oh, this guy is whatever. You crazy bernie. You cant take it for granted, and the most important thing, its not the most important thing but just as important as President Trumps election are these house races, senate races beneath, and those are what you have to be most careful of. So the impeachment, the issue that they chose to go after President Trump involved questions about the arrangement between hunter biden, burisma the Ukrainian Energy firm for which he was serving on the board of. The amount of money that was being paid to, him the influence that he was wielding within the state department in order to ease pressure in terms of investigations on burisma. A whole giant ball of wax in terms of questions about corruption, casual corruption in washington. Are those questions still legitimate and will congress pursue them . Everything that you just relayed but the democrats throughout that process what you heard them say is no, its completely irrelevant, this has nothing to do with this impeachment. There was a quid pro quo, and everybody saw a video of the quid pro quo, and it was joe biden. And shaking down the ukrainians and ordering the firing of the prosecutor general investigating the company and that his son was a board member on. Or lose a billion dollars. So, the idea, one thing, as we went through that process that you did not. See you heard democrats say, that is irrelevant, dont look behind that car, and that has nothing to do with what President Trump did. But they know one defended what hunter biden and his role was during that period of time. No one said, gosh, at the same moment the ukrainian thought that hunter biden was the one person on the planet that could provide expertise about Ukrainian Energy. That was the same hunter biden that the chinese thought was the person who ought a manage ability and a half dollars of financial assets. They did not talk about that. The only one defending hunter biden throughout the process was joe biden. So very clearly the eye deal that there was not a case of corruption for the head of the executive branch donald trump, to raise question, about was ludicrous, it was entirely appropriate for him to raise those questions and for that to be the basis of a conversation with the president of the ukraine before agreeing to spend more money, american taxpayer money to support president zelensky and the ukrainian people. But the frame was that because joe biden may be the nominee of the Democratic Party, that somehow absolves his family from ever getting any sort of scrutiny from the judicial system, how does that work . It didnt work for President Trump. And they were willing to make up stuff in order to investigate him at the height. For me from the beginning before we knew any of the details about russia and all this stuff. The hookers in moscow. All of this stuff. The most astonishing thing is somebody who just wants america to remain vibrant, free, and safe, is the idea that you have a sitting administration investigate a political opponent at the height of a president ial election and actually use that investigation to punish political opponents, that is the kind of stuff that happens in russia, thats the kind of stuff that happens and run as way la, it is terrifying, and the remarkable lack of curiosity in much of the media about that particular thing is was astonishing. And of course the other part of this you know. Other than the democratic leadership which i think is just completely capitulated to the asylum, the patients in the asylum, is the fact that the media has allowed all of this to go on. Unchecked. Because half of the country is watching msnbc and cnn they are being lied to every day, not only by the media but also by party leaders. And many of these people are perfectly legitimate people to have legitimate questions about donald trump, dont like him for legitimate reasons, and they are being completely deserved by these people who are lying to them. The problem is, they go down to impeach donald trump in the wind up impeaching joe biden but all of these democrats, they still do not know about hunter biden and burisma. So here we have South Carolina coming up, in two days, joe biden and bloomberg has completely embarrassed himself. Joe biden is in a position to actually become the anti Bernie Sanders moderate wing of the party. And he still hasnt been tested on this stuff. And i cannot help but think that when he does get tested on it all of those people who like bernie because he is given him helen he has donors and all of that. They are not going to like joe biden. They are not going to like the fact that his son was making all his money on some Ukrainian Gas Company board for doing. Nothing you touched on a critical point here. The role the media plays in advancing all of this, or ignoring things intentionally. So the disservice this has done when we talk about hunter biden, i cant tell you how many news pieces, im sure you both feel the same, what you read and you see the word debunked as a hand wave, we are not even going to talk about this, debunked, if its debunked, show me the custody, show me the chain of custody to demonstrate that this was debunked. And they do not do. That and then we see from the new york, times i want to talk about this with the congressman, the House Intel Committee gets a briefing from a Trump Administration official, the New York Times, screaming headline, that russia is working to reelect donald trump, they are doing it, again the New York Times as last, week and what has changed since the briefing, we have seen a dozen headlines walking that back, claiming that that game of telephone that ended up in the New York Times, by somebody inside the house intelligence committee, and it up not being true, it was totally misrepresented. Why does that happen . And were you the leak . Yes, were you the . Leak its funny that were having that discussion about what is still a classified briefing, information behind closed, doors and you are asking me about a report in the New York Times about what specifically was said. I cant tell you how many reporters have asked me to go into detail about it. It is still classified, it would be a crime for me to give the specifics to this crowd right now. And yet, everyone knows most of the details, as you have now correctly laid them out, unfortunately you just gave the most recent incidents. This is happened for the last three. Years i remind everybody, that, while donald trump jr. Was providing testimony to the committee, more than two years ago, there was live action on twitter about what his testimony was in realtime. So you have folks that have access to classified information that are not treating it with the respect that it deserves. So folks are real clear when something gets classified at the top secret level. It is information that provides Grave NationalSecurity Risk if its out in public. But it is not being treated that way. And we have seen that unfortunately consistently since donald trump has been president of the United States and ironically, or not so ironically, why is it that its only the case when its information that is allegedly damaging to donald trump, right. It goes one way. A one way street. Now charlie, one of the things i find i see gets pretty routine is that the media keeps citing that. I cant believe donald trump wants to exclude adam schiff from intelligence conversations. They write about it as if it is a bad thing, i think the New York Times referred to adam schiff has doggedly other, day hes constantly pursuing the president of the United States. The conversation we just said what doesnt that kind of explain why donald trump might not want to have adam schiff involved in highly sensitive briefings. Especially if you take this stuff seriously, take the russia investigation seriously, or take the corruption in ukraine seriously. If you take it seriously, then you need to take it seriously. And taking it seriously is not leaking it to the press. Not weaponizing it. When you weaponize it when you turn the stuff we think of as being very important to national security. Too important to our elections and you politicize that you are doing the exact thing that that you are accusing the president of doing. To me, one of the most absurd absorptions is the thing thats happened alaska beloved aids is you have chuck schumer, you have nancy pelosi going after President Trump claiming that hes not taking the coronavirus seriously because of how much money he asked for from congress. These are people who have spent three years, lying about making up fantasies about russia and hookers and hotels rooms. And they spent the last six months impeaching the president in a case they knew they were never going to win and they were never going to remove him. All the while this pandemic was growing in the middle of all of the impeachment. And then they are going to stop in accused the president of not taking coronavirus seriously enough. And then the press writes it. And you have headlines about this. It is lunacy. Its absolutely messy let me project ahead. Lets project ahead. Lets predict the future for a moment. Trump is reelected in 2020 you didnt do democrats learn a lesson from that congressman ratcliffe . Or do they doubled down . They doubled down. Everyone will probably agree with that. They havent learned a lesson so far, and they havent learned a lesson despite the fact that throughout this process, as charlie instead, whether its the russia hoax or the ukraine hoax, in every instance the president has been. Right he has been one that has been telling the truth with respect to whats happening. I look at Something Like the steele dossier, from the beginning many of us that had access to the fisa application, and the issue of everything that was going on, there raised questions and concerns about that. He was called conspiracy theorists. Now you have everyone from last week, the fbi director, the week before that the fisa court itself, before that the department of justice acknowledging there was illegal surveillance. The Counter Intelligence investigation against first candidate trump, then the sitting president of the United States, was continued illegally. Remember where we started on all this, this is a wild conspiracy. President trump was right when the Law Enforcement community and the Intelligence Community didnt get it right on all of those things. What you bring up a super important because it goes to the crux of the stories, remember two reports were issued from your committee, on fisa abuses. At the time it was devin nunes, he comes out niches a report and says these are traumatic abuses, and the republicans on the community on the committee demonstrated what was said about fisa, and for those who dont know this was the illegal surveillance of american citizens being done by the government, she was dogged by it. The press sided with the adam schiff interpretation, that is that saying that there were no abuses. When it finally came out from the inspector general, how much did we hear that devin nunes was interviewed. But the larger picture here is, so disturbing to me, is that the Democratic Party used to be filled with classical liberals, who are suspicious of government suspicious of authority this is the kind of thing that would drive them crazy but, the idea that you would have a federal government issuing phony warrants, to go after private citizens. This is terrifying to a classical liberal. But they have all of the party. The classical liberals that we grew up with a admiring, even if we didnt necessarily agree with them on everything, they hated communism for example, they hated socialism for example, they have all left Democratic Party. And they have become this branch of hack party, all about power, all about dividing the country, and is not based on any sort of principle. And it is a terrible terrible malaise on the party. Also if you think about the patriot act and after 9 11, the government view this type of surveillance, a lot of liberals were voicing abuse of those powers at the time, and we have seen some of that we have seen the government abuse its surveillance powers and they were right, but for now its foreign few between, you cant buy many of them. And Bernie Sanders, is the most liberal politician that weve ever produced, the guys absolutely crazy, he believes that the federal government, the federal government is the answer to every problem that you have. Think about that and when he says he wants to raise the minimum wage, yes he wants to raise it to a point where he can start taxing the hell out of you. So its just basically a kickback for him, he wants the federal government to be so powerful, so involved in every aspect of our lives, that we completely lose any sense of america. Its the fundamental flaw of socialism, they think they seek concentrations of power, and you know what the remedy is a giant concentration of power. No thats not how it works. I was going to add charlies point, about hes exactly right were saying the Democratic Party and people having to leave the Democratic Party, you know it is a bridge too far for so many, for the Democratic Party once stood for. I was surprised this last year, i never thought i would serve the United States congress, when people were elected, as openly socialist. Just that quickly, we are now really at the precipice of the possibility the nominee for the Democratic Party, is an avowed socialist. I will tell you that the moderate democrat, in the house of representatives are terrified the prospect of that, because that is a bridge too far for most americans. Im going back to the impeachment, what you have seen, and charlie is right, nancy pelosi has become hostage to that progressive mob, within the party. It is why she went from oh no, impeachment has three overwhelming, and bipartisan, to doing exactly the opposite. So for crowd like this, you know as much as it troubles us, to hear folks in the Democratic Party, advocating socialist values, that are opposite of what has made america the greatest country in the world. At least its an opportunity for us, not only for President Trump to be reelected against that backdrop, but for us to gain control of the house again, and really get great things done in the next four years. So to your point that speaker pelosi, is being held hostage, by the left wing fringe of her caucus, we saw another example of that yesterday. She said she would be comfortable now, with Bernie Sanders being the nominee of the party. That is new for her to say that it loud, she has spent the knee charlie, she is ready, shes got a bad case of the sanders right now. Yet she is still she will do anything, nancy pelosi will do absolutely anything, i used to think she was a brilliant tactician, but now she is a brilliant tactician as keeping herself in power, that is the only thing that matters. I think that congressman this is exactly right, its a great opportunity, its a great debate. So i think about that state of the Union Address, President Trump gave two weeks ago, was the finest state of the Union Address ive ever seen. Ive never seen a politician, who is more capable, of telling the vivid story, about his record, and more vivid compelling story, about his vision, then President Trump. I realize hes very unorthodox, does a thing in his weird way sometimes, but ive never seen a politician better that. And if i were to send somebody into the arena, to make the argument for america, and for freedom, and against socialism, i cannot think of a greater combatant than President Trump. Congressman ratcliffe, before we leave here i do want to ask about something important, regarding those surveillance issues that were talking about moments ago, the way that those abuses were carried out against carter page, was something called the fisa court, they were able to get a warrant to surveil him without his knowledge. Of course they had a pretext somehow to do it. Next month that court is coming up furry authorization, by congress. Congress has a chance to say no we will not or thrice court, or we will modify it, what do you think is going to happen . The complicating thing there vince, is the democrats arent approaching it from a tree straight standpoint, they do not want to acknowledge that this was initiated in a Democratic Administration democratic officials, using foreign Intelligence Surveillance tools, for political gain so they dont want to admit what has taken place. I think that many of us see, for Intelligence Surveillance act itself, without getting into specifics. That i cant theyre still classified, a good percentage maybe 25 of our actual foreign intelligence comes from that. It is a valuable tool that has served our country well, and i could say saved lots of lives. But there is no value in defending institutions, for the sake of just the institution itself. There is no nobility in that. You have to defend the values behind the institution, like the fbi the department of justice, and components of our Intelligence Community, i hope we approach the right way, because that is really what is important, in terms of being able to preserve our democracy. A man. Congressman john ratcliffe, thank you. Whats up . Hey whats up . I can tell there is gun people in the room. I have ten minutes, now this is part of the event, when everybody gets nice and awkward. Everybody gets nice an awkward because we have a full room of people, that believe in conservative values, liberty