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Crossing the Rubicon with Laura Ingraham

Published Aug 15, 2022, 8:00 AM

The country is at a breaking point. For the first time in the United States, a former president was raided by the FBI. The Biden administration has crossed the rubicon into uncharted territory by targeting a political opponent. Tensions are high, and Americans across the country are worried about the future. Fox News host of The Ingraham Angle joins Lisa to give her perspective about where we have been, where we are now, and wearing we are heading as a country. Don’t miss Laura’s important insight.

We have a very very special guest for this episode, none other than the great Laura Ingram. You know Laura Ingram from The Ingram Angle on Fox News, always speaking the truth, fearless, independent minded, which I deeply respect. I love people like that. I love people like her. So I gotta tell you it's an honor to to have her guest as a guest on the show. You know her from TV. She previously was a nationally syndicated radio show, The Laura Ingram Show. And also before her media days, she worked as a speechwriter in the Reagan administration in the late nineteen eighties. You know, she went on to get her law degree. She worked as a judicial clerk in the Second Court of Appeals in New York, then for the United States Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas. So she's lived an interesting life, obviously accomplished a great deal, but I think most importantly, she's fearless and she's brave. I originally wanted to have her on to talk about life and to talk about some of that, you know, really interesting work experience she had and how she got into media and all those sorts of things. And then the FBI decided to raid Trump right, and the country got turned upside down and my plans got turned upside down for the things I wanted to discuss. So now we're gonna talk about that the impact it has on the country. We'll get into other things too, but you know, primarily just sort of talk about the direction this nation is heading in. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I know it's an honor for me. Big fan of Laura Ingram, I'm sure you are too. So here she is Laura Ingram. So we've got a big show today, a big week obviously, a lot happening in the country. The great Laura Ingram is joining us. You know, Laura, I originally wanted to talk about life because you're a badass and I admire and respect you. But then the but then the but then the you know I do, but but then the FBI rated Trump. So you know, now we're here, Laura, and it feels like the country is forever changed and we have uncertain times ahead. I think, Lisa, we have arrived at the at the proverbial rubicon. And you know, if people know their history, uh, that wasn't good. People think, oh, we're at the rubicon, it's a new frontier. Now. This I think does so much to undermine what Americans need to believe about their government, namely that the government exists to make their lives better. It doesn't exist to turn them into enemies. It doesn't exist to vanquish political opponents. It actually is supposed to work for us. And if we begin to lose faith in our law enforcement and our federal investigative services to the extent that I think so many people are losing it now, you know, to quote new Gingrich on the angerm angle um this week, he said, we're at the precipice. I mean, it's not an exaggeration to say we're at the precipice now, because we know already. LI said that these forces on the left I don't like the Constitution. They're not interested in in the Framers. They think the Framers are a bunch of racists. And everything about America that has kind of held us together for two or in fifty years they think is inherently corrupt. Uh. And so they don't care if people don't believe the FBI is operating in good faith. They don't They don't care if people think the Justice Department is essentially the praetorian guard for a failing administration. I don't care about any of that, because they think the system itself is fatally flawed. They would much prefer, and I say they sort the elites who have helped build up China all these years and let our military deteriorate over all these years. They would far prefer America to be run under a global understanding where where all the big decisions are made elsewhere by people we don't vote for, and by people who don't really have much respect for what the American experiment was really all about. So so it doesn't surprise me that they would go this low and degrade our system to the to the extent that they are because the people who are really pulling the levers of power now, they don't like our system. They think it's corrupt, and they think it's it itself needs to be smashed and reformed and remade into something that's much less accountable to the people who who they believe are also corrupt and racist. Um So, I think that's really the conundrum that we're facing, is a is a ruling class that has no respect for our foundation stional documents, or uh, you know, our our entire framework of of existence and liberty for the people and securing liberty for the people. They don't like that, and that that that kind of system gave us Donald Trump in and you know, it's propelled Rhonda Santists to embarrass all these other governors who kept their states closed. So I think I think Americans overwhelmingly want things to get better that. I think they overwhelmingly want things to go back to quote normal, um, the new normal that we see we see playing out since the pandemic. And we all now see the truth about that. I mean some of us saw it early on, but you know that's right, better later later than never. But people want to return to normalcy of a government they can they don't necessarily will trust, but they think is not purely existing to make their lives miserable. Uh. And I think that's what we're gonna we're gonna see play out in these election cycles coming up. And how is a nation survive in in the environment that you laid out when you have half of the country, the people on the left, undermining our institutions and not believing in our institutions, you know, not believing in the documents that created this nation and created the framework for the nation. Yeah, how does a nation survive in that environment? Well, I think the only way we can the only way we've ever gotten through every incredibly difficult situation, whether it was a Great Depression or civil rights struggle or you know, the Civil War. I mean, we have to as a people decide that we aren't going to tolerate a certain type of leader, that we're gonna we're going to encourage and support those leaders who actually respect the people. And I think you see signs of that happening. I mean they're I think there are too many conservatives out there, and not just conservatives, but other people who say, oh, we're going to hell and a hand basket, there's no turning back, it's all law, all hope is lost. I mean, nobody wants to follow that that mindset. Reagan came in in nineteen eighty in an environment that was so broken for America. I mean, we had our embassy held hostage, we had we had Iran erupting, we had the Soviet Union still threatening US, we had a massive economic disaster on our hands, and we had we had a complete decline and patriotism and in a lack of respect for our military. I mean across the board. In nineteen seventy nine nine, going into nineteen eighty, America was in a huge mass. We had terrible crime, cities were a mass, and we had someone to say no, no, no no, it's gonna be morning in America. There's that we don't have to live this way. So I believe this comes from the people, and to finally people get fed up and they propelled someone like Reagan. But remember Reagan lost in nineteen seventy six. He lost the nomination in seventy six, not by a lot, but he began to put together his framework all the way back in sixty four when they really all hope was lost for the conservative movement. Talk about depressing back in sixty four. And so we have to understand that things didn't get screwed up overnight, and they're not gonna get fixed overnight. This is going to take an enormous amount of work. But I think it's possible. I mean, I just think there's so many amazing young leaders out there, from whether it's Josh Holly or Tom Cotton or De Santist. Obviously, people like Christy Nome and Um you know, all the great political leadership we've seen in Texas, Greg Abbott, and so I think there's a lot of hope. And I think I think we're seeing this kind of begin to bubble up in the younger people winning these primaries. You know, some of them won't win, some of them will win. But these are people who are you know, these are Hispanics, these are African Americans, these are these are moms, uh, young business people who have just decided, you know something, I'm not gonna sit on the sidelines. I'm gonna get involved. And I think that's surprising the Democrats right now. I think that's shocking them of how Republicans have really thrown off the cloak of the old establishment that failed us for decades and it began begun to really embrace this more populist conservatism that you know that Trump smartly grabbed onto and rode all the way to the presidency. In So, I think there's a lot of hope, but it's going to take a lot of work. Well you, of course, we're a speech raider during the Reagan administration. But to your point, I believe that's why they're they're cracking down, because you are sort of seeing this upraising really not just in the United States but around the world, the people standing up to their government saying this is enough. COVID really accelerated the rise of authoritarianism in the West, and I think it's open some eyes. I was interested to see, Laura. I'm sure you you of Andrew Cuomo, the guy who killed elderly people, then covered it up saying that whoa, whoa, this is a bridge too far. It must be more than a search for inconsequential archives or will be viewed as a political tactic. So even seeing someone like him as corrupt as he is saying that this is corrupt. Yeah, I think that Democrats who have kind of um been around politics for a long time should be very careful about what they're saying about this search warrant. I mean, I saw Schumer didn't say anything. He didn't want to get dragged into it. Bernie Sanders didn't say anything that Maybe that's just a political tactic. I don't know, but I gotta say, I mean to to drop a warrant on a former president of the United States and the guy is probably gonna be the party's nominee in man, you better you better have like espionage or something like that. That's just something we that'sn something speaking of norms that they supposedly are so worried about protecting. That is something we do not do. We do not do that as a country, and they decided to go there. I think least you're right they're very worried about Trump winning again, because I kind of joke and I say, I say Trump comes back, is going to be no more Mr nice guy. I kind of joke about that. But because he he now has he's learned. I would think that he's learned that you have to have great staff, which I think he actually did have at the end. He might not, he might not agree with that, but actually think he really did have good staff, especially at the end. You have to have great staff, and you have to hit the rent ground running because the the the swamp will eat you up. And the in this lionizing of the of the military leadership, which he did, and I talked about this a lot this week, the lionizing of the generals. Just because someone's called a general doesn't doesn't it doesn't mean that this is someone who you have to I think is right on every single issue in fact, these generals have been brought up through the ranks of political correctness and diversity, equity inclusion, and most of them are just worried about the defense contractor board that they're gonna land on in five years. So Trump, I think, has had his eyes opened about the truth of the bureaucracy, the truth about the Pentagon, the failures there for for decades and decades we haven't won a war out right, Why is that? Why don't we ever ask for accountability on that? And so I think that Trump wins this time, Lisa, And he's not going to talk about draining the swamp. He's going to drain the swamp you talk about you talk about terrifying for them, Yeah, that's gonna be terrifying. So I think I think they pulled out all the stops because Aviator sunglasses man ain't gonna beat him next time. Yeah, I mean, he rolled the curtain back on how corrupt and broken or government truly is. I think it opened a lot of eyes. He opened my eyes for sure, really changed my thinking on a lot of things politically. But ultimately, isn't this about the annualization to free speech and wrong thing? Oh? Yeah, I think This is one big intimidation play. And I think the way they handled January six, I said it. I think the first week after the you know, after the riot at the Capitol, that this was going to be used as a way to surveil justification for more surveillance, monitoring, intimidation. Uh, you saw what Justice Department did with this domestic Terror unit and expanding what actually qualifies as domestic terror. So I think they want Americans to think twice before they show up at a rally, or before they post online, before they open up a Christian school, Um, you know, before they go to a gun safety class. I mean, I I honestly think there Their goal here is to make the average American complainant compliant and and and and and worried and with good and with good reason. I mean, when you when you're trying to criminalize parents at school board meetings and call that and tackle a father who's daughter, who's whose daughter was raped in a bathroom. I mean, as you saw in that Loudon County video that I think changed the whole course of the gubernatorial race and in Virginia, I mean, this is gestapo stuff. This is this is stuff that you know when I lived in the Soviet Union, when I was a student back at Dharmouth. I mean, I saw that stuff in the Soviet Union. We were we were scared about who we talked to, and we were there because we knew we were being watched. Without getting too conspiratorial, I mean, how how much farther down the road do we have to get before we approach that territory? I mean, I'm pretty fully convinced that we're probably a monitored to some degree, to be perfectly honest, but uh, you know, I mean it's just if if you're you know, if we're being honest about it, Uh, they're probably tracking us, but you know, we're a Republicans. Like Mitch McConnell, I think he truly is stunned that the party has already left him. I honestly think he really can't believe that the party is not his party anymore. It doesn't matter if he's called Senate Majority Leader. The people aren't with him, and I think it took him a while to grudgingly admit it. Obviously, in the aftermath of this raid on Trump, I think he was thinking Trump was finished. Trump was murmuring about coming back, but come on, all right, that's not gonna happen Donald Trump. I mean, the old guard knows what's best for the people on trade and immigration and government spending, and and I think he was truly shocked when, after he was outmaneuvered on that climate change bill, uh, that the reaction to the Trump raid was unify the party around the guy who has the America first, and not around the guy who's allowed government to grow and who has never met a defense authorization that he doesn't like, which is Mitch McConnell. So I think I think he truly was shocked about that, and he was shamed into coming out and making the most flaccid of statements about this raid, about oh, well, we're expected Joseus Barbara has to be very transparent about this. Yeah, no kidding, no kidding, they have to be transparent about it. But it took him, you know, a full twenty four hours to make any statement that he was only he was shamed into making that statement about the raid. But again it was a weak statement. So I think he's I think he's shocked. I think if they if you know, it's unlikely that they're going to win the Senate at least, if the races were held today, the Republicans shockingly might not win the Senate back. But if they did with the set it back, Mitch McConnell's position as a majority leader isn't a sure thing, that's for sure. Speaking of that, what what impact do you think this has on the electorate heading into the mid terms. Well, the raid I think unifies the party. I think it has the danger of it has the danger of also stoking Democrat turn out because Trump's out there again and maybe he'll announce he's running for president again. And the concern is that they hate him so much that now there are people were going to turn out on Moss as well. But I'm not sure. I mean, I'm really torn on and I don't know if I'll have a great answer to this, Lisa, because it's a tricky situation given how precarious people's personal budgets are right now. I mean, most people are digging into their savings at the middle income levels because their salaries aren't keeping up with inflation. I mean, somehow today they crowded about how, oh, inflation is only eight point five They're celebrating that, what was it? What were they celebrating like pennies off of gas prices and they think everyone's paying double, but it's like, oh, you saved twenty cents or whatever. Yeah, it's a great point. So I think that the media will continue to try to resurrect I should say resuscitate um Biden Biden's performance. Look, he's got these winds at oh because called the change we got the we got the chip bill. But celebrating winds on their own because they were bills were past, that doesn't translate into a better life for the average American. So we'll see how this all plays out. I tend to believe that it's going to make energy more expensive and imports of various component parts of solar panels, everything more more prevalent um. I don't think it's going to do much to certainly raise the standard of living of the average Americans. So I think their celebration or their attempt to burnish the Biden record or turn around his momentum, I think that's premature. Were but that's kind of all they have has been. I don't think it necessarily means that people in November are gonna say, oh God, I want more of this. This has been fun. It has been great. Let's go out and vote for that guy when they you know, we haven't even talked about the border. But I think the immigration is under underpolled as a concern for people. Um, but I think when the school year starts, we're gonna have a we're gonna have We're gonna have a lot more concerned parents out there. Well, it is hilarious that you've got people like Eric Adams, You've got Democrats who are saying, oh, you know, diversity is or strength, you know, let them come in. We we need to take all of them. And then the second buses start showing up to New York City, they're like, oh, this is gonna overwhelm our schools, overwhelm our healthcare. And it's like, as Republicans were, like, we've been saying this, like that's the whole point. Welcome to the club. I think you're right. And I think again, I think people people conflate Trump with with the people's overall sense of happiness in the country. I mean, you know, Donald Trump has been a friend of mine for twenty five years and and I I'm always very open about this on my on my show. But you know, we'll see whether that's what the country wants. I mean, what the country country, I think is so exhausted. They're exhausted by the battle, the constant battle that they they may believe that, well, maybe it's time to turn the page if we can get someone who has all Trump's policies, who's not Trump right. So the other concern though, and I don't have a position on this one way or another, but the other problem is is that it's really not about Trump right. This is about the views that Trump now brought to the fore for the Republican Party. They don't they don't like his views. They don't like the fact that he called out the military for their earliers, that he wanted US to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, that he wanted to treat China and our trade relationship with China in a in a much I mean it was smarter but much different way than the globalists preferred. And they certainly didn't like the fact that he sent all those illegal immigrants back to Mexico that remained in Mexico. I mean, they don't they think borders are immoral. They think, uh, they owning you know, owning big SUVs is immoral. They think eating too much beef is immoral, having air conditioning as immoral. These people think that the American way of life is immoral, and and it doesn't. It doesn't really matter in the end whether it's Trump making the populous conservative points or whether it's the Santists or someone like him. They're going to come full bar against any Republican, even an establishment when they saw what they did to Romney. Romney was a caricature of Thurston Howell the Third by the time they got done with him back. So yeah, Trump is a is a is a placeholder right now for the higher and fury of the left. But anyone who steps into that breach is going to find the same find the same pain being thrust at him or her quick commercial break back with the Great Lord Ingram. On the other side, we talked a little bit about the economic climate right now in the country. My viewpoint is they want Americans impoverished, right The whole point of the Green agenda is to push people to more government control. The poor people are, the less they have, the more reliant upon the federal government they are. Well, I think the more people are relying on the federal government, the less freedom. They ultimately have to change their own destiny. And I think the left prefers things like lockdowns because then people can't move and pollute the planet. They can't, they don't think for themselves. The government tells them when they can travel, when they can go to church, when they can you know, go to the store. The left loves making decisions for the people. They don't want the people to have the power. And that's why the lockdowns were so damaging to our national psyche, to our to our way of life too, the way people think about life. You know, when you see people walking around in two and three masks still, you know, this has had a profound effect on the American you know, American people, and it's terrifying. Thank god we had these red state governors who basically, you know, flip the bird to the to the Feds, into the into the Blue States and said we're not stay closed. Are you kidding me? I mean, it's thank god we had the Red States, Otherwise I don't know where economy would be today. I mean, I moved down to Florida for that reason of leaving New York wanting freedom. So smart I love it, Laura, I mean it's like life has just been so great here. I don't I don't miss New York at all, to be honest, it's it's been lovely New York. Sadly one of the great cities is turned into a crime ridden hell. It's gone back. So New York has gone back to what it was in the eighties and seventies, and after Julian they cleaned it up. Now it's going back and rents are still high. Everything is still expensive. And you know, the left got their way because now a lot of people have moved out and so the subway ridership is down meaning meaning what meaning more, the public public structures that they love so much are crumbling, so you don't have money to When you don't have people going into the city to work, then the city start to decay. So that's that's the flip side of there. Oh isn't it great? Remote work? Everyone's at home, no one's going in the office. Okay, well you tell, Let's see what the cities are looking like in five years. Let's see, let's see how they look. Do you think Americans are now connecting the dots and the correlation, as you mentioned, you know, the bigger, the centralized government. The bigger the government, the more problems we have, the worse off we are as citizens. Do you think people are finally drawing you know that correlation after COVID? I think more are and it's going to take a continued effort to educate, entertain and inspire the voters uh to seal that message. And again, people forget that Reagan campaign in all fifty states. I believe it was almost all fifty states, and he finished up his campaign in I believe it was in the Bronx, So he went everywhere. It was a different world, obviously, and we have social media and all the everything that we have now. But I I maintain that the this populous movement has to be a fifty state movement. There's no reason that we should have twelve, you know, Democrats in New England in the U. S. Senate, even even if they're even if sometimes they're called Republicans, they act like Democrats. There's no reason for that. I mean, these are great states. I grew up in Connecticut. It's a beautiful state. So it's not gonna happen overnight. I will say that again. But I really believe that our motto should be no state left behind, no city left behind. You know, we love this country, We love every aspect of the country, and we refuse to give up on St. Louis, on Chicago, on Oakland, on Hartford. We we we were not going to give up on you. The left is given up on you. They use you. We're not going to do that for you. Here's a better way. And I think I think the more we sell that message and and not and be unafraid. It's easy to say, but we really have to be on a fraid. Oh they're gonna protest you. Of course they're gonna protest. They're gonna hate you. Of Of course they're gonna hate you. They're gonna call you a racist. Absolutely, we'll call you a racist, now what. So that that's how I think we have to approach all this. And I think that's the point. I mean, Republicans just need they need to stop looking for a pat on the head from the liberal media. Understand that we're all going to be we're all gonna be smeared, we're gonna be labeled. We all have. But I do think part of the path forward is through the states. I mean, we've got twenty three g P states, with trifecta government. If every governor in those states bucked up in the way that governor to Santa says, the federal government wouldn't have as much of an impact on their lives. Yeah, I mean most most governmance happens at the state level and the local level. That's why I think you're seeing more people run for school board and more people are getting involved. And I've ever seen from a wide you know, range of American society. Oh, and I think that's that's good. But we we do have to remember the states is where most of it happens. And we can't we can't. We can't just throw up our hands and say, oh, California has lost forever. No, it isn't a lost forever. It's look at what they've done to California. You think people want to live that way? I don't think so. But they do have a party machine that that that that churns out votes every you know, every two years. And we have to build back ard my our machine there. We used to have a party machine there. Where is it? So? I think I think if people believe that immigrants came to this country just to live at the poverty line, I don't think you're really understanding politics too well. I think people, for the most part. I'm not talking about the drug dealers and the human traffickers, but most immigrants who have come here to this country in the last twenty years, they came here because they want a better life, and and in the life that they're consigned to with with just you know, the minimum that the government will provide you in the quote safety net, that's not much. And I think we say stopped. It's time to stop demonizing rich people and start telling everyone if you work hard, you can be rich too, and free. And I think that's I mean, look, I want to be rich. I'd love to be rich, but I want everyone else to be rich to, you know, the left ones to be rich and then drag everyone else down and make it impossible for them to also get ahead. You know, Laura, is there anything you know? It really does feel like this upcoming midterm election is sort of a make or break moment for the country. But is there anything else you'd like to leave us with before we go? I think, um, all of us, and at times that seem so turbulent, and everything seems like it's operating on a knife's edge. I do think in this sounds that cliche, I know, but everybody has to take the time to just be with their friends and their family without a political moment, you know, with out of without politics tinging every aspect of our conversation, life goes by really fast, really really fast. So everybody, to the extent that you can take, even if it's an afternoon or an hour, take time away from devices and screens and really be together and and pray regularly. If you if you're a believer, pray. I mean sometimes we say we are believers that they don't. We don't really listen to what God's telling us. And I'm guilty of that. Um, I'm just really speaking to myself here. But step away from the chaos of of of life and and take those moments to really count your blessings and be grateful for everything that we have in this country and all those who sacrifice for us. And then you can, you know, pick yourself back up, and you know, get back to work, whatever your work is, do a great job, and and and really try to love each other a lot more. And it's not easy when you when you really just someone. I always tell my kids when someone fights with them or says something I said, pray for them. It's easy to like the people who are who are good to you, it's hard to pray for the people who are not so good to you. So I guess that's my staffie way to to close out well, and that means we're praying for a lot of people. It's a long list, Laura, so we got a lot of work to do. Laura Ingram, it's an honor. I really respect you, I respect your voice, and it's just an honor to have you on the show. So thank you so much for taking the time. Congrats on the podcast. Can't wait to come back and come on TV soon. Love it, Laura, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. We'll talk to you certinly, so bye bye. What's that cool? I've always been a huge fan of Laura ingram. I. I love people who are into, pendently minded, who fight for what they believe, who are strong in their opinions, and that's Laura. So very cool for her to join the show. It truly was an honor to have her on. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you're enjoying the show. If you do please leave us a review on Apple you know, give us five stars, rate us, leave us a review. We we always appreciate the feedback. It's just helpful to know what you think. I also want to thank my executive producer, John Cassio. We're always working hard to put the show together every Monday every Thursday, but you can also listen throughout the week. The Truth of Lisa Booth