Are We Witnessing A Revival? | Episode 130

23:48Dan Bongino:we need more courage. I was glad to see Rubio demonstrate it yesterday. And he gives me hope that he has a very promising future ahead of him. Another man who has a promising future ahead of him is J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance yesterday said that there are worse fates than the one that Charlie suffered. Yes, Charlie suffered death. That's a tough fate. It's also a fate that all of us are due for, however it comes. but he said there are worse fates. Listen to J.D. Vance yesterday. Charlie suffered a terrible fate, my friends. We all know it. We all saw it. But think, it is not the worst fate. It is better to face a gunman than to live your life afraid to speak the truth.

24:39It is better to be persecuted for your faith than to deny the kingship of Christ. It is better to die a young man in this world than to sell your soul for an easy life with no purpose, no risk, no love and no truth.

24:56Dan Bongino:Amen. Great remarks from the vice president of the United States. Now, the vice president, of course, wasn't alone. The president of the United States also addressing the assembled there. There's a lot that the president said. I won't play the whole speech for you, but I just want to play a little bit. Here's the president talking yesterday about how this attack on Charlie was not merely an attack on him as one man. It was an attack on all of us as a nation. I mean, they didn't kill Charlie because the guy didn't like the way Charlie looked. He killed Charlie because he didn't like the views that he was expressing, the views that you and I share.

25:34Charlie's murder was not just an attack on one man or one movement. It was an attack on our entire nation. that was a horrible attack on the United States of America. It was an assault on our most sacred liberties and God-given rights. The gun was pointed at him, but the bullet was aimed at all of us. That bullet was aimed at every one of us. Indeed, Charlie was killed for expressing the very ideas that virtually everyone in this arena and most other places throughout our country deeply believed in. But the assassin failed in his quest because Charlie's message has not been silence. It now is bigger and better and stronger than ever before.

26:21Dan Bongino:And it's not even close. Amazing. One last element here that I want to get to the president of the United States yesterday. He kind of told a bit of a self-effacing joke about like this this impulse that we have to forgive our enemies. And he joked that he doesn't share Charlie's attitude of forgiveness. And it was kind of a, you can tell it was kind of a half joke. It was like, look, I've got a fighter spirit. I'm not that interested in forgiving my enemies. But listen to the president and tell me whether or not, give me a sense, Chad, if you have the same range of emotions as I do. I'm somewhere between Erica Kirk and Donald Trump all the time.

27:03Dan Bongino:Internally, I'm having the very same wrestling match that was on display yesterday. Here's the president. He was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose. He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them. I'm sorry. I am sorry, Erica. But now Erica can talk to me and the whole group and maybe they can convince me that that's not right. But I can't stand my opponent.

27:38Dan Bongino:Again, you know, this is this moment from the president is, of course, been instantly misinterpreted by Democrats and rhinos. Oh, look how awful Trump is. And they try to divide people. He should be more like Erica. He's an awful human being. No, Trump is a human. Erica Kirk is a human. And the president, clearly you can hear it in his tone. For those of us who followed him long enough, you can tell that he's kind of joking. But he's acknowledging his own flaws. We all have this flaw. You're tempted by this vengeance. You want justice. And that righteous indignation that wells up within you often will whisper to you that you should take the dark path.

28:21Dan Bongino:But I'm telling you, the president, he spoke for me yesterday. Erica Kirk did too. And that's our human condition. We're going to continue to have that wrestling match internally. How do we confront this? But there is one thing we know for sure. We have to confront it. We have to confront it and we have to do it for our families. We have to do it for our kids and we have to do it for our country. And boy, it was so great to see all of that on display yesterday. In a moment, I'm going to have the great Susan Crabtree stop in. We're going to chat with her about everything that she witnessed and her lessons from yesterday's important events.

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31:59It's an important day. What a cathartic event for those who are able to watch all five plus hours of it. I just thought it was an incredible healing experience for Charlie Kirk supporters and the nation as a whole. And I think we're all struggling with what Trump was, what you just said, what was on display, all the range of emotions, outrage, anger, sorrow. So I felt like there was a few quotes that I remember from that day that I thought were, you know, just hold on to these things as we're moving forward. I wrote a piece called What Would Charlie Do? The Path Forward Out of Darkness after the memorial service was over.

32:47And, you know, it was interesting to me that you had his spiritual mentor talk about the healing process that you can, the Christian maxim that God will bring good out of evil. And we already saw that on display with this reuniting of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the clasped hands and the smiles and easy going chatter between the two of them. It was sort of like this wonderful reunification of two sort of frenemies. And I thought that that was sort of the message that we needed to take away. All things are possible through God. and Ben Carson was great too. It's this balancing act. You cannot be the land of the free if you're not the home of the brave, Ben Carson said.

33:42And he said, you've got to stand up for what you believe in, but we need to do it with love. Everything needs to be done with love, even though we're forcefully standing up for what we believe in.

33:55Dan Bongino:Ben Carson, by the way, one of my heroes, and we just had him on the show, I think it was a week ago or so, And the president this weekend announced at the American Cornerstone Institute that Ben Carson will be receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and rightfully so. So that's a very nice thing to see. You know, one thought I had about Charlie, Susan, watching all of this yesterday is Charlie, given what he was doing, he was going to these campuses and he was debating. And, you know, you've been engaged in political debates in your life. where you're called upon to like debate a leftist on television or whatever.

34:30Dan Bongino:And usually these are short experiences. They're not like long-winded debates if you're doing them on TV. But if you're engaged in a long-winded debate, one way you might prepare is you've got to think about your opponent's likely talking points. What are they going to say? How am I going to respond to them? What do I back up to in order to win this debate? And as you continue to back up, you have to back up to first principles. What do we believe in and where does that come from? And so it's in a sense, it's kind of no wonder that Charlie was such an evangelist, because as he continued to back up to first principles, he kept deriving them from eternity.

35:04Dan Bongino:He kept saying, well, this comes to us from God. And I and I love you because you were built in the image and likeness of God. I just think that dialogue happened to make him a better Christian. Oh, just absolutely. And yesterday we saw, you know, just Donald from Donald Trump to Erica Kirk, sort of embracing this idea that now, you know, even though the shooter wanted to take him down, was doing something just evil that he is now his voice is now amplified. And that voice is really, you know, evangelizing the truth along with his political views, the truth that he believed under that was undergirding all of his political beliefs.

35:50And it's just it's to me, I've been trying to grapple with this, the same type of anger that Trump was displaying. And but it's sorrow and and trying to find a moment of healing here. And I just turn to First Corinthians. I happen to be studying it anyway, 16, 13, 14. Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, but do everything in love. And I think that's the message coming out of this. You're not going to just, you know, just put aside your belief system. In fact, you're going to do the opposite. You're going to be rise to the occasion and strongly state what your beliefs are.

36:35And we should have that civil discourse that Charlie Kirk so embodied, basically. He upheld it. But we need to be kind in our messaging, even though we have differences. And that was what was so beautiful about Erica Kirk's message, that she was already ready to forgive the killer, the assassin of her husband, 10 days after the event. It's remarkable. I'm not sure we all are ready to forgive, but there is that sentiment that she she held so dearly and displayed yesterday and in such a remarkably composed way.

37:14Dan Bongino:So one thing I was struck by yesterday in a big way was all of the elected officials and cabinet members who were professing their faith so openly and so courageously. It's I'd never I've never seen anything like this in my life ever. In the wake of 9-11, of course, there was a lot of call to prayer and there were things like, you know, people singing God bless America on the steps of the Capitol. All moments, expressions that I appreciated. But I've never seen anything like this, Susan. What do you think this means? Well, I noticed that J.D. Vance said he had never spoken so much about his faith in Jesus Christ as he has done in the last 10 days in all of his years of public service.

37:56You know, I just think it's going to open up a flood of this testimonies, personal testimonies, because we try not to, some of us try not to wear our religion on our sleeve, our belief in Jesus Christ. But sometimes you just have to embrace it. These moments that, I mean, they're the foundation of a lot of our belief system, at least for me it is. And I've decided to wear my cross. I have all my life and 30 years in D.C. politics. I haven't done so because I thought, you know, I need to remain nonpartisan as a reporter, not display my religious beliefs for fear that that would make me biased, appear in bias.

38:38But you know what? I'm not going to hide it under a bushel anymore. This is a core belief system that I have. And I think it's like Charlie Kirk. We can't hide it under a bushel. We need to display what has given us strength through trials in our life. And the nation needs this more than ever now. So I just think I was so touched. Even the Secret Service, you know, that's what I cover a lot. You saw them at one point being so impressed. And on the tops of the building, some of the snipers, I don't know if they were Secret Service or they were local law enforcement, but they were just engaged with the crowd and raising their hands up.

39:23I will do a shout out for the Secret Service. What an amazing job they did in just 10 days. I think they deserve a debt of gratitude for the nation for allowing everyone to grieve and have the wonderful, beautiful service for Charlie Kirk.

39:39Dan Bongino:Can you talk to us about that side of things? I was curious your thoughts on the Secret Service protecting an event like this. This is unusual. Normally, you don't get such a short time frame for an event of this magnitude to be put together and to be secured. You know, with with political conventions, for instance, which are often concentrations of this many important and well-protected people. It takes many, many months, years to plan out how exactly how you'll secure an event like that. This was done in 11 days inside of an NFL stadium. You had almost every high ranking cabinet official there.

40:15Dan Bongino:the vice president of the United States, the speaker of the House, the president of the United States. From your perch, Susan Crabtree, as someone who reports so extensively on the Secret Service, what kind of effort did they have to undertake to make sure that this was a safe event? It was a Herculean effort on their part because they had so many other things going on at the same time. They have the U.N. General Assembly, which takes so many of their resources in New York, More than 100 foreign dignitaries in New York City right now, as we speak, on a rolling basis, actually. But they also were just coming off of a huge trip to the United Kingdom that Donald Trump took.

40:55So it was called a Sears event, Sears One Level event. And it was a sort of a whole of government approach. You had the federal government working with local and state law enforcement resources. And they managed to pull it off without a hitch. I wrote a story saying this was going to be a big test for the Secret Service. You know, I've been very, very critical of them in the wake of the two assassination attempts against Donald Trump and a series of embarrassing failures. But this one was a triumph for the Secret Service, and they deserve all the recognition that they are going to get for just pulling this together in such a short time and doing it so seamlessly.

41:40Dan Bongino:Yeah, it was it was a remarkable event. And I found myself deeply impacted by it. And, you know, I know there are people on the left who were under the impression that this that people would forget about this in seconds, that nobody would really think that much about Charlie Kirk's life after it was taken from us. But but boy, I feel like he's having the biggest impact he's had yet. And he was so impactful in life. That's exactly right. I mean, I think that he is going to be amplified. And, you know, it was a touching moment when Erica Kirk said, you know, he said, if you offer yourself to God to use you, he will do it.

42:19And, you know, she's giving up the ultimate sacrifice of her husband, not willingly, of of course, but his life is now going to be remembered for all of, for Stan, for the civil discourse that he so rightfully championed and, you know, just for his faith. And that's what he wanted. This Christian revival is exactly what Charlie Kirk wanted. And it's, it's amazing turn of events. And I thought that this, this, this memorial service did more than do him justice. it really helped bring a healing moment to the nation and to all of his supporters, friends, and those that he influenced so greatly throughout his short 31 years on this earth.

43:07Dan Bongino:Yeah. And by the way, the last thought on this, it's also a sign that God is using Donald Trump in a very interesting way. And he has been. You know, there's a lot was said about Trump, especially people who didn't want him to become a nominee or the president of the United States. How could Christians support that man? He's had all these wives or whatever. And the thing that I always have remembered is that he wasn't, you know, Trump wasn't elected to be our pastor, but he was elected to be a bodyguard for religious liberty, which he's done so well and so effectively. And you can tell on his own journey that after he was shot in Butler last year, especially that he's in a different place now.

43:47Dan Bongino:and I just think I can't see all the pieces, none of us can, but I do think that what happened yesterday is the latest and a very important chapter in Donald Trump's leadership of this country. I would sincerely agree with you. That was very well said. And people see this as a sort of a dichotomy. He's a fighter, but he's a fighter on behalf of many of the beliefs that Charlie Crook and many Christians espouse. So, you know, we are looking to his championship of religious freedom already. The Supreme Court has been acting in that way on behalf of parents that are fighting for their religious rights in schools across this nation and so many other ways.

44:34But yes, I think you put it best, Vince. It's just it's just an interesting. Well, we can't we see through a glass dimly always on this earth. You can see that that God is working in this administration.

44:50Dan Bongino:Yeah, no, I know. Believe me. I mean, I didn't. My plan was not for Trump to sit out of office for four years. I got it a very different plan than I did. And it turns out time and time again, his plan's a lot better than mine because it worked out much better than I could even have imagined. Susan Crabtree, thank you for all your politics reporting through the years and just your wonderful presence today. Good to talk to you. So glad to be with you, Vince. Thanks for having me. Susan Crabtree from RealClearPolitics, she's the best and a dogged, really talented reporter. Boy, she's using her talents.

45:25Dan Bongino:Okay, let me get to something else before I go. And we're going to spend a lot of time on this, of course, because we have been spending a lot of time on it. And it's the fact that you and I talk about justice. We want to see people held accountable for what they've done to our country. for the abuses that they've meted out on our country from their positions of power. And there was a moment this weekend on Truth Social that really jumped out at all of us. Let me pull this up because the president of the United States on Truth Social had a message for the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, that he shared.

46:11Dan Bongino:And fellas, if you could pull up my screen here, I want people to see this. Here's the president's statement. This is now Saturday night. He posted this. And he wrote, Pam, it didn't say Bondi, he just said Pam, but you and I know who he's talking about. I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that essentially, quote, same old story as last time. All talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam Shifty Schiff, Letitia. They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. End quote. That's the that's the these are the messages the president's receiving. And then he goes on.

46:53Dan Bongino:Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. attorney in Virginia with a really bad Republican past, a woke rhino who was never going to do his job. That's why two of the worst Democrat senators has pushed him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit and that we had no case. I'll get to that in a second. No, I fired him, said Trump. And there's a great case and many lawyers and legal pundits say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer and likes you a lot. We can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice and indicted me five times over nothing.

47:31Dan Bongino:Justice must be served now. President DJT.

47:40Now, here's the thing.

47:41Dan Bongino:I wasn't thinking about this. I spoke to somebody much smarter than me about this subject. And this person floated the idea that this might have been a direct message. In other words, the president may have been writing this to send directly to Pam Bondi, but accidentally published it. Now, I'm not sure if I believe that or not. I can believe it. Maybe that's what was happening. But one way or the other, he is posting this very publicly that he's furious that these people are not being brought to justice. Now, the other piece of this, the one that the president acknowledges in this message to Pam, is the fact that this weekend, the president fired the Eastern District of Virginia attorney, the acting U.S.

48:35Dan Bongino:attorney, by the name of Eric Seibert. And the New York Times has a report up on this. I'm not going to trust their take on it, but just as a way of reflecting on the fact that he's gone. They said, U.S. attorney investigating two Trump foes departs amid pressure from the president. and they say the U.S. attorney investigating New York's attorney general, Letitia James, this is important, and the former FBI director, James Comey, also important, said he resigned on Friday. That's hours after President Trump called for his ouster. Yeah, the president did that in the Oval Office on Friday. Eric Seibert, the U.S.

49:13Dan Bongino:attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had recently told senior Justice Department officials that investigators found insufficient evidence to bring charges against Ms. James. Let me tell you something about that. That is nonsense. We've spent a lot of time talking about faith and Christ today, so I'll avoid cursing today. I have to avoid cursing. It's usually good. It's not good for you to curse all the time. But let me just say that this is horse hockey. I'll put it that way. This is garbage. Insufficient evidence to bring charges against Letitia James. You remember what the case against her is.

49:48Dan Bongino:She is the attorney general of the state of New York. And she lied when applying for a mortgage in the state of Virginia, that that was going to be her principal residence. Now, it'd be one thing if you had some sort of person who was untrained with reading documents with a close eye, that they had done something in an ignorant fashion. It'd be one thing. It's another thing entirely when you have a trained attorney filling out a legal document and then lying in the document about her intention for the residence. This is as much I've talked to a lot of lawyers about this. This is an open and shut case against Letitia James.

50:30Dan Bongino:It's not even a close call. The fact that this guy is, according to The New York Times, pretending like, oh, there just wasn't really enough evidence to go after her means it's utter and complete left wing garbage. That guy should not be in that role. And it is good that the president of the United States has fired him from it. Unquestionably. Now, one of the things the president said on this subject, the reason why his antenna went up about this guy is because he had endorsements from the two Democrat senators in Virginia. Listen to the president. Here he is asked about this on Friday, talking about the up until this weekend, Eastern District of Virginia, U.S.

51:16Dan Bongino:attorney. Listen here. James, are you disappointed that the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia has not prosecuted Leticia James? Do you intend to fire him? Well, we're going to see what happens. I am not following it very closely. It looks to me like she's very guilty of something, but I really don't know. I know that the U.S. attorney from the Eastern District or from that district in Virginia, that he was approved by two Democrat senators who, in my opinion, are among the worst. And when I learned that two senators, Democrats, because, as you know, it's very hard. So what he's talking about, this is Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.

51:55Dan Bongino:They're the Democrat senators from Virginia, and they have given their endorsement to this guy. And so in return, he is serving them by not prosecuting as he should a legitimate prosecution against one of their fellow travelers, a person who has weaponized her office to attack Donald Trump and the people who voted for Trump. A Republican to get somebody approved. If you have one senator that's a democrat because of an old custom it's not a law it's a custom it's it's a ridiculous custom but if you have a democrat senator you have to get that senator approval in this case we had two uh when i saw that he got two senators two gentlemen that are bad news as far as i'm concerned when i saw that he got approved by those two men i said pull it because he can't be any good so you're you see one fire you want him out yeah i want him out yeah when i learned that uh he was blue slipped through yeah by two democrat senators in virginia people that would uh never vote for the people that haven't voted for us for probably years okay probably years two in my opinion two bad guys you know they are water and cane two bad guys bad senators too they do a terrible job for the people of virginia true But when I saw that he got approved by these two terrible people that haven't voted, they just don't vote no matter what it is.

53:23We could give them the greatest deal ever and they still wouldn't vote. And they voted for this guy. And I have other people, judges, and I have U.S. attorneys from other states who have the same situation.

53:36Dan Bongino:All right. So I'm seeing in the chat somebody's asking what's a blue slip. Not everybody knows this. Totally fine. It's a Senate procedure. And the basic point is this, that the U.S. senators for each of the states have a right to veto any of the federal judicial or U.S. attorney nominees by the president of the United States. They have a veto right over the whole Senate. It's a tradition in the Senate. And Republicans and Democrats have been guarding this power in their own states. And so the idea is basically that if, you know, you've got a Republican president who's trying to appoint U.S. attorneys to do the job to actually prosecute violations of the law.

54:15Dan Bongino:And in this case, you have Democrat senators going, nope, not in my state. You can't have somebody who's going to enforce the law in my state. I'm going to veto that. And if they greenlight the person as Mark Warner and Tim Kaine did in the case of this, this presidential nominee for the Eastern District of Virginia, well, that's a clear sign that they think that guy's going to do their bidding. And based on all of the public reporting, he was doing their bidding. He wasn't prosecuting someone who clearly violated the law. And that can't happen. We've got a lot to get to. We'll continue on this story.

54:51Dan Bongino:I want to talk about some of the ways that the Republicans in the Senate can actually fix all of this. What can be done about it? We'll get to it in the days ahead because we desperately need consequences for the people who violated the laws in our country and hurt the rest of us. You have to have that. You have to have that. Our thanks, as always, for you joining me here on this program. We've got the big national radio show coming up. I'll explore more of this on the radio show today, 12 to 3 Eastern Time. You can find your local listings at thevincshow.com or watch us, rumble.com slash vincsweet.

55:23Dan Bongino:Do it live every day. As always, great to have you with us. I'm back with you tomorrow.