Best of the Program | Guests: Gov. Ron DeSantis & Sen. Mike Lee | 1/28/25

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On today's Best Up podcast, you're going to hear Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

He's talking about the weasels in Florida.

Also, Callie Means makes a case for RFK.

Mark and reprisal.

It's kind of like, army matey.

Some pirate.

Really, honestly, anti-pirate stuff that's in the Constitution that Mike Lee is saying we need to use against the drug cartels, and it's starting to catch on.

He also has comments about RFK, who we will be covering tomorrow in the hearing.

This is all on today's best of podcast.

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You're listening to

the best of the Benambak program.

The first 100 days of the Trump administration have been breathtaking, a lot like the early days of Ron DeSantis in Florida.

And what he's doing in Florida is trying to get the state to do everything they can to make sure that Trump's policies are going through, especially on illegals.

There is a house with these unbelievable rhinos that in a special session, they didn't want to come back because they said it's not an emergency.

What are you talking about?

Ron DeSantis called for a special session because he said the president was just put in office.

I want all of the tools on the table to help him solve this problem.

The rhinos said no, and then they started to

change everything that he wanted and then have the balls to name it the Trump Act.

Really?

The Trump Act?

And Ron DeSantis, governor, is with us now to tell us a little bit about the Trump Act.

Welcome to the program, Governor.

How are you?

I'm doing good.

You know, a week ago today, we were preparing for a historic snowstorm, and our state record had been four inches.

We actually hit last week 10 inches of snow in northwest Florida and Milton.

You saw the beaches covered in snow.

So it's kind of an interesting period for Florida.

Where's the global warming when you need it, right?

Okay, so tell me about, because what I've seen, which

just what's happening with Wilton Simpson is an abomination.

Tell me who you're fighting and what you're fighting against and for.

Well, you hit it on the head.

They didn't want to do anything on illegal immigration.

And after the election, I said, this is our chance.

This is the number one issue the president ran on, and we need to get it right.

And so there's no way.

President Trump can fulfill his mandate if the state and local governments and law enforcement are not actively supporting his deportation efforts.

I mean, think about it.

He's come out of the gate strong, but they've done

about probably 700, 800 arrests on average a day.

Let's just say 1,000.

Well, extrapolate that out, 365,000 a year times 4.

Biden let in 10 million illegals on his own.

Now, I do think the Trump administration will ramp up.

I think they'll get better numbers as time goes on.

But if you just had every red state, say all police departments, all sheriff departments, all state agent, law enforcement agencies have to participate maximally in the programs that the Trump administration is offering for immigration enforcement, you would increase those numbers dramatically.

And that is what we have to do.

We've got to be ready to go.

We've got to work hand in glove.

Now, what you'll have in California and in Chicago, they're going to be trying to sabotage Trump's agenda.

They're going to be sanctuary jurisdictions.

Now, we don't allow that in Florida, but I think most states who are not sanctuary, they're just going to say, hey, it's the federal government's responsibility.

Yeah, we won't sabotage it, but we're not going to be in that fight.

I don't think that's adequate.

This is a historic moment for this country.

We've been talking about this issue for decades.

Yes, Trump is absolutely right by going after the cartels and designating them foreign terrorist organizations.

Obviously, we need to build the wall and fortify the border.

But you have this massive problem of interior enforcement.

And so that's what we're proposing, as well as other things that are important.

Legislature didn't want to do it.

I called the special session against their wishes.

They said it was premature, that it could wait.

But, you know, they got blowback from their constituents.

So they thought if they came in, gutted with the enforcement of doing what we need to do, and just name it the Trump Act, that somehow they would be able to get away with that.

Obama named Obamacare the Affordable Care Act.

Obviously, it wasn't affordable.

Biden named his spending boondoggle the Inflation Reduction Act.

Obviously, that didn't work out.

So they're playing this game where if they think if they put Trump's name on a weak bill, that somehow people think it's going to be good.

And it's totally inadequate.

But here's the thing, Glenn.

Before I became governor, Florida was very weak on illegal immigration.

And part of it was they thought because Hispanic population here, you had to be.

I proved that wrong because I was the strongest governor and I had a record Hispanic vote in 2022.

So that was wrong.

But then you do have this desire for cheap illegal alien labor in some of these industries.

And I think that's what these guys are trying to preserve.

I don't think they want to see immigration enforcement the way you would need to to fulfill President Trump's mandate.

So they made it sound like initially it was a difference of opinion on timing, but understand what they're proposing, it's a difference of values.

The values that we all ran on, that Donald Trump got elected on, that all your listeners subscribe to, those are reflected in the proposals that I did.

They are not reflected in what the Florida legislative leaders are doing.

And you mentioned the Commissioner of Agriculture.

They're actually taking away immigration enforcement authority from the governor and putting it in the Commissioner of Agriculture.

It's just like the Fox guarding the hen house.

They don't want to enforce it.

Are you kidding me?

They're even stripping some of the things I have now, like E-Verify.

They want to put that over there.

So it's a really, really bad product.

And here's the thing.

I think some of them are caught up in, oh, well, we don't want the governor to get the win.

We're sick of him always doing all this stuff.

I don't need pride of ownership.

They can take 100% of the credit.

I just want to get the job done.

And if if we're not doing what needs to be done right now to get ready for this, then there'll be some successes, don't get me wrong, but we're not going to be able to actually deliver on the mandate that the voters gave us.

And here, just the final point I make.

Republicans all run.

For four years in Florida, they all ran on bashing Biden's border policies, saying we needed to get tough, supporting Donald Trump's agenda in 2024.

They all ran on that.

Not one Republican ran and said, you know what, we just need to give it all to the Commissioner of Agriculture.

You know, state and locals shouldn't be required to help the federal government.

They wouldn't do any of that.

And now they're bragging about they're going to spend money on giving beds for illegals.

I don't want to house the illegals.

I want to deport the illegals.

It is remarkable to me.

I mean, first of all, Wilton Simpson, he wants to be governor.

When you're not governor, he's going to run in the next cycle.

He's compromised.

He is the guy who supported giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens.

He gave the cutout for E-Verify so agriculture didn't have to worry about it.

Refused to provide law enforcement resources during the original border crisis.

This guy

is not a helper when it comes to doing the things that Americans have just said they want to be done.

Who is

also, I mean, I'm just looking up.

You've got the Senate president, Ben Albritton, House Speaker Daniel Perez.

They seem to be in the same boat as Wilton Simpson.

Who needs the pressure?

Well, look, I think that just all of the legislators,

you know, they just need to hear from their constituents.

And they're getting upset saying that somehow they're getting threatened because some of their constituents are telling them that this is not right.

But they need to be held accountable for their actions.

And if what they did, if what they're doing is consistent with what they told the voters they were doing they're not going to have any problem right but I'll tell you Glenn I've been doing this now for six years this I've never seen our base react more negatively on an issue than what the legislature is trying to pull right now it is like 99 to 1 in terms of opposition so

I think sunlight's the best disinfectant people just have to make their voice heard but but we shouldn't let this slip through our fingertips.

I think some of it is some inside baseball up there.

You know, Wilton Simpson was the Senate president.

A lot of the stuff, tough immigration policies we did two years ago, I wasn't able to get through when he was Senate president because he did block it.

And he did support things like driver's licenses for illegals when he was in the Florida Senate.

But he really exercises a lot of influence over the Florida Senate.

So the fact that he was put into that bill, I don't think that that was an accident.

I think that that was definitely something that they were trying to do.

And does it even pass the laugh test?

No.

That no state has been more active in fighting illegal immigration over the last, over Biden's term, than me, than Florida.

And me, we've had people at the border.

We did Martha's Vineyard and other transport.

We enacted a mandatory E-Verify.

We've done all these things.

And then you want to take all that away and give it to the Ag Commissioner and create some new crazy bureaucracy?

They don't have the infrastructure for in the first place.

It would all have to be rebuilt in the Ag Department.

Am I right about that or wrong?

Exactly.

And the way the bill is written, you know, we think it's unconstitutional because it actually takes away some of the core executive power that is vested in the governor's office under Florida's Constitution.

So it's constitutionally suspect.

It's also, as a policy matter, it is not going to work.

And here's the thing.

If their proposals were consistent with what they campaigned on, it would actually work,

and they had competing, hey, if it works, it works.

Their proposals will not work.

I mean think of even this issue.

It needs to be a crime for illegals to register to vote.

We've been trying to do this for years.

That was in my proposals.

They're not including that.

So illegals can register in Florida under their proposal

and they're not requiring them to sign an affidavit that they're U.S.

citizen, which our Constitution requires, and there's no penalty.

Well, guess what, Glenn?

If you let them register, by the time they vote, even if you prosecute them after the fact, the vote counts.

The time to stop it is when they try to register in the first place, and yet they're not doing anything about that.

We have in our proposals a rebuttable presumption that illegals that get brought up on criminal charges are detained and then turned over to ICE.

They watered that down so that judges are just going to release these guys back on the street.

So it's a lack of seriousness about what it really takes.

to get this issue right.

And I can tell you this, when they proposed their so-called trump act misnamed trump act democrats in the florida senate were high fiving them

liberal media in florida have been singing their praises the aclu of florida uh tweeted uh thank you for for for what you're doing i can tell you this glem when we banned sanctuary cities democrats were not high fiving anyone when we eliminated dei a couple years ago No Democrats were high-fiving anyone.

When we eliminated the woke, when we did stop the gender insanity, when we did all those things that Florida became famous for, no Democrats were high-fiving.

No media was singing our praises.

The ACLU was not in our corner.

So if this is really a tough immigration proposal, then why are these people on the left embracing it?

I have to tell you, Ron, this is the one thing that has stopped me from moving to Florida.

I promised my wife that someday we'd live on the water.

And so the only option for me really is Florida because it's a free state and it's a great state and you're the governor.

But I worry about you when you leave.

What are these stupid Republicans going to do?

And honestly, I just, they, if we don't get all of these weasels out and get the people in that actually believe in what we're trying to do, the state's going to go back to the same wishy-washy garbage that makes it a garbage state as it always have.

You guys have led the way, and it's the reason why you're leading the United States right now, because you're doing what the people are asking for.

These guys who don't get it, man, they should be on notice.

I, like you, have never seen the Republican voters as awake as they are right now.

They know what they want.

They see what's happening in Washington.

They see what's happening in Florida.

And if you are a voter in Florida, you need to get on the phone because your state's going to go to trash the minute this guy leaves.

If you don't have people that understand what and

believe and will execute what you want to happen, you need to get on the phone right now and call your Florida representative.

By the way, we have Sheriff Wayne Ivey on with us, Governor, in just a few minutes.

I think he's going to be kind of telling the story about what you're actually looking for, isn't he?

Yeah, look, I mean, people like Wayne, they want to solve the problem, and so they want to participate in these federal programs.

Not everyone wants to do that, which is why we have to make it an expectation that all police departments and sheriff's departments want to do it.

But just think about it.

Yes, we focus on criminal aliens, and that's important.

But I want to get these guys before they commit crimes.

I want to make sure our schools aren't overrun with illegals.

I want to make sure our health care system isn't overrun.

I want to make sure that illegals aren't getting into accidents and they don't have insurance, and then you're out of luck.

So there's so many ways that this problem impacts our society.

And unless we get it right on enforcement right now under Donald Trump's leadership, we're never going to solve this problem.

And the quality of life is going to increase dramatically.

And look, you talked about Florida, you know, what's going to happen in the future.

I can tell you this.

I came in.

I was bold.

They told me that was a mistake because it was a 50-50 state, but we were bold.

We delivered results.

There was a sharp contrast between us and the left.

and we've had more political success in Florida than Republicans have ever had when you water down when you do the corporatism where you're not standing for working people but you're worried about things like cheap labor when you do that you will lose political support that's the lifeline I think the reason the Democrats were high fiving is because they see that the the leaders in the legislature, they're giving them a lifeline to regain relevance in Florida.

They're giving them a pathway where they can return to to power in the future.

We have beat the left.

We weren't trying to high-five them.

We've beat them on issue after issue.

That's why they've been rendered irrelevant.

And

the formula is very clear.

And even look at the national election.

Donald Trump was bold, and he was rewarded.

I've got to run, but it's so great to talk to you.

Keep up the good fight.

Governor Ron DeSantis.

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go to americanfinancing.net that's americanfinancing.net now back to the podcast This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

We're talking about RFK.

His nomination process begins tomorrow.

And there's a lot of miss and disinformation

about RFK.

A lot of stuff that's being said about him is absolutely true.

However, has he changed his view on anything?

You know, will he give guarantees to Congress that he's going to be pro-life?

That's a big one.

If you don't get James Lankford, you're not going to get the nomination.

I think that one is imperative.

And so far, Lankford hasn't said one way or another, I don't think.

And there's also things like, there's 15,000 doctors that have signed

a

demand that RFK, he's not a doctor.

He can't be a doctor.

You know, you don't have to put anything in except your name to sign that.

You just go online and you're like,

I'm Dr.

Full of Crap and put an address in and boom, your name, Dr.

Full of Crap, is on that list.

So

really?

Is that true?

It's true.

Dr.

Full of Crap?

Yeah, try it.

Yeah.

Try it.

He's a good doc.

Anyway, Callie Means is with us.

He is the co-founder of TrueMed, the author of Good Energy, and he says it is imperative that Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.

is to be confirmed.

Welcome, Callie.

How are you?

I'm doing great, Glenn.

So you are well aware of some of the games that are being played.

Mike Pence is playing part of that game.

Is he not?

He is.

And I think it goes right to what you're saying about Senator Lankford, who I've worked with, who I know is dedicated to this issue.

And let's be very clear.

The life

plank is a vital part, a crucial part of the Republican platform.

But let me explain to you how this game is played.

CNN, of all places, recently reported that the pharmaceutical industry is the chief funder of Mike Pence's group, and the pharmaceutical industry is funding money to that group for Mike Pence to, in my opinion, bastardize the life issue and run ads and reach out to senators like Senator Lankford to say that Bobby is going to be an attack on life.

Let me be clear about one thing, Glenn, and I know you saw this.

I don't think there's been a more pro-life movement than what happened between Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy in recent memory.

I mean,

the heart of what they talked about is a spiritual issue of what the heck is happening to our kids, where we're the sickest country in the developed world, where 38% of teens have prediabetes, where 50% of teens are overweight or obese, where we have a mental health crisis among children, where we're living seven years less than the Italians right now because of our broken health care incentives, where we're stunting.

And through our incentives,

not enabling our children to thrive.

And just to be super direct,

watching this process with Bobby and President Trump, Bobby fully understands the centrality of the life

platform to the Republican coalition that have given him and President Trump an opportunity to serve

and is going to be fully executing the Trump administration's directives at that.

And I know staying very close to many of the pro-life leaders in the Senate who have already endorsed him.

So very cynical move by Mike Pence here.

So you do believe he will make a clear statement that he won't thwart the Trump administration on life?

Oh, I mean, I'll let him speak for himself tomorrow, and I know he'll do that very well.

But I can tell you that Bobby Kennedy believes that this is a fight for life and deeply respects the

centrality of the pro-life coalition and the Republican coalition that have put him in power.

And

I think has already had very productive conversations with pro-life leaders who have come out and endorsed him, and I know he's going to be very close to them.

And he's not in there to

subvert any promises made by the Trump administration on that.

He is there to fight for the lives of our children.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So let me ask you, Kelly, because

I agree with you that there is something wrong with

our health care system, maybe our food, everything.

There's something really wrong.

And I think it comes from GMOs and pharmaceutical companies that

we're treating symptoms.

We don't seem to be really going after the problem in many ways, especially with pharmaceuticals.

And

I don't know what the answer is.

I know that

we have some vaccines that have been, you know, good, polio, smallpox.

I had it, you know, when I was a kid, but now we're getting 80.

different shots at birth.

And that there's something wrong with the way our kids are growing up and everything else.

And I don't know what that is, but I like Bobby coming in because he is going to at least expose the things that need to be exposed.

But I don't want somebody who's in there saying, no,

no smallpox vaccine,

no polio vaccines.

Glenn, I think this is really

the next key point to make because he's getting, I think, very cynical pharma funded attacks on the pro-life issue.

And then you get to this vaccine issue.

You get to this really idea that Bobby's going to come in and come in with strong opinions and start banning and regulating things.

And I want to make something really clear.

And this should be clear from what Bobby and President Trump have said during the campaign.

Bobby is not a scientist, and he is not coming in there with a list of medical opinions or even food opinions.

President Trump and Bobby have been very clear.

that the directive is to figure out what the heck is going on.

Phase one of Maha is getting to the truth.

It's getting Jay Bhattacharya and the NIH.

And right now, Glenn, 85% of NIH spending is pharmaceutical R ⁇ D.

So what does that mean?

It means they're not asking why we're getting sick, which you would expect the NIH to do.

They're actually a fully owned subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry that's profiting from the fact that we're getting sick.

They're not asking why we're getting diabetes, why autism rates are going up, why heart disease rates are going up, why cancer rates are going up.

They're working on ineffective cancer jabs.

They're working on ineffective band-aids for Alzheimer's when Alzheimer's is actually preventable.

So I think you're exactly right.

We don't fully know what's going on.

And I actually, and you know, this is my opinion, I think President Trump is going to win the Nobel Prize when Bobby Kennedy and Jay Bhattashar are done with the HHS and the NIH.

Because

if there's one accomplishment that can be made in the next two years, it's let's get back to science.

Let's give the American people and policymakers accurate information that we're not getting.

Because, Glenn,

I don't think Europe has very good health policy, but they're living 10 years more than us, right?

I think it's because the strong arm of mandates isn't as pronounced there, that there's more informed consent, that people are able to make better decisions.

I mean, Maha is about, and what Bobby King's talked about, is just getting back to science.

And the last thing I'll say, Glenn, just being in some of these discussions, there's zero ideology.

The directive from President Trump isn't to get to a specific outcome or solution on a food or pharmaceuticals or vaccines or whatever.

It is to get money to the best scientists in the world so we can figure out what's going on.

So I think that's a very important point.

So he's got a lot of opposition tomorrow.

How are you going to get Mitch McConnell and Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, you know, Corey Booker on board?

I think we've been dragged into darkness inevitably now that power is close at hand, you know, with pharma funding pro-life groups ostensibly, with, you know, so many interests at play and so much money at play.

I mean, let's not forget healthcare is the largest and fastest growing and most employed industry in the country.

There's a lot at stake here.

And, you know, our message, my message going into this week is there was a spiritual strain hit during the campaign with Bobby Kennedy and President Trump.

I mean, they talked about unimpeachable issues of, you know, figuring out why our kids are getting sick, getting absolute rank corruption out of our medical authorities that we saw during COVID I mean why is why is 75% of the FDA's drug approval department funded by pharma you know why are NIH folks during COVID employees able to take hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties

you know why is the CDC able to have a nonprofit that accepts hundreds of millions of dollars from pharma to buy off the

the agency.

These are very simple things and even larger than that, Clint.

I mean, I think what Bobby Kennedy and President Trump actually represented with Kennedy walking out on that stage with the sparklers, with President Trump, is that this administration is not about left versus right.

This is not about debating page 300 of the Medicare Part D law.

This is about taking on corruption.

This is about unimpeachable issues.

This is about true,

on this issue, bipartisan reform.

So I think I know you saw that, Glenn.

We talked throughout the campaign, and then I know my sister has with you.

There was something spiritual.

So I think what we need to do this week is just remind people of the stakes, is remind people of the fact that, you know, kids, right, are the sickest, American kids are the sickest kids in the world right now.

And I would just urge Mitch McConnell or anyone on the fence, it can't be worse than what's happening now.

Our public health authorities have totally failed us.

Bobby Kinney and President Trump tapped into this unimpeachable spiritual issues of figuring out why our kids are getting sick.

We need to give them a chance.

And I'd say, Glenn, this is the will of the voters.

There is no nominee that President Trump talked about more than Bobby Kennedy.

You know, we didn't know who the Treasury Secretary was going to be, the Secretary of Defense, most other departments.

He was very clear during the campaign in every single speech that he was going to turn over health to Bobby.

This is a true campaign mandate.

And, you know, it will be a disaster if senators overrule that clear mandate from voters.

Kelly, I appreciate you coming on and making a good case for Bobby Kennedy.

I will tell you,

I am all in on exposing bad things, finding out, because I am convinced, I mean, well, COVID,

there are bad things that are happening with our government and pharmaceutical companies.

Not all things that pharmaceutical companies do are bad, but there are a lot of bad things.

And our government is

being wagged by food and pharmaceuticals right now.

And I just want the answers.

I don't want somebody to come and dictate those answers.

I want to see the evidence of what's really happening.

I think

this is the mandate that was given to Donald Trump, and that is expose it all.

Expose it all on every front.

If there's a problem, expose it.

And then we can deal with it as a people.

But I don't want somebody coming in and your assurance that that's not who Bobby Kennedy is going to be

is reassuring.

I hope you're right on that.

Kelly.

I want to underline it one more time for all the conservatives listening.

And I know Bobby made the case well during the campaign.

There is not a list of regulation or bans.

It is about getting to the truth.

Americans can make an informed decision.

Americans are not trying to be sick or poison their kids.

The problem is we don't have the truth.

We don't have the information.

That is step one of Maha.

And Bobby and Kennedy and President Trump, as we know, are committed to a deregulation agenda, a freedom agenda, but that requires informed consent to the truth.

Kelly, I think that if the Maha agenda, if it is about exposure and freedom,

then if that agenda is not part of this, I think that's a big part of

the mandate that will be lost because I think this is a spiritual, this is a physical,

it's a metaphysical thing that we're dealing with right now.

We have to deal with all of it or we can't cure any of it, quite honestly, I believe.

Callie, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Callie Means, TrueMed, co-founder, co-author of Good Energy.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Boy, there are no crazy ideas right now.

It is an interesting time to be alive in America.

Senator Mike Lee is joining me now.

Yesterday, he he proposed using letters of mark and reprisal to weaken the drug cartels.

And

I mean, I'm in love with this old-timey constitutional idea,

but it basically would make private citizens or companies,

it would give them permission to be kind of like pirates where they could just go and just bust them up and take all their booty as long as they share it with the United States.

It would be great.

It would be cheaper, and we wouldn't have to put our military in harm's way.

Mike Lee joins me now.

Mike,

explain the letters of mark and reprisal.

A letter of mark and reprisal

amounts to a government-issued commission of sorts authorizing private citizens, known as privateers, to perform acts that would otherwise be considered piracy, like attacking enemy ships during wartime.

And privateers are typically rewarded with a cut of whatever loot they bring home.

If they're able to make it back to the United States and bring home assets that can be sold, liquidated, reduced to an economic value, then the government sets up what's called a prize court, which decides who gets what.

And typically the government keeps half of it and then

has a system for giving the privateers involved in it each their

fair share of the other 50%.

So these guys, let's say Eric Prince.

Eric Prince loves this idea.

He was like, I'm all in.

He would go down to the border and he would what?

Break up the cartels by, as they're shipping stuff across the border, grab their cash, their guns, their cars.

They're using boats, whatever.

and the drugs, and then give those to the government.

And the government would say, okay, Eric, this part is yours.

Yeah, now, to be clear, when you say the border,

we're talking outside the United States.

I don't think this works for things found in the United States, but if outside the United States, they recover assets,

typically what we'd be looking at are assets that could be liquidated by the government,

gold, silver, cash,

equipment, if they can bring those things back into the United States and they can then be sold.

Now, that also raises the question of the drugs.

Obviously, we're not going to allow those to be sold.

So, you'd either have to exclude those or the government would just have to go out of pocket to reward them for bringing that back in.

And that's one of the things that would have to be discussed.

This is a tool that hasn't been used by the United States for a long time, but it's a tool that harnesses self-interest, it harnesses what people could gain by this in a way that could really be advantageous to the United States.

Boy, I got to tell you, I love this idea.

Donald Trump Jr.

loves this idea,

but it does seem like something that Mexico would

hate.

Sure, sure.

I mean, it depends on who you're talking about within Mexico.

Hardworking, individual Mexican citizens who have

lived under the tyranny of these cartels, who have been affected by the violence that is rampant throughout the country and sponsored by the cartels.

A lot of them would

perhaps not

have much of an objection, if any objection at all,

because they want to be free of this stuff.

But yeah, I can imagine that the Mexican government might have feelings about it.

But this is different.

This is different in the sense that it's not the United States undertaking any kind of an effort to have a military presence in Mexico, which would, of course, be unacceptable to Mexico.

This is about private citizens going out and

trying to seize assets of these terror organizations, of this international criminal enterprise, bringing it back to the United States with the understanding that they'll be entitled to a cut of about half of it once they get back.

So the one thing that I was thinking before this idea was we're going to send in SEAL teams and they'll just be gone before the sun comes up and you'll never know who did it and there will just be a lot of dead cartel members laying there in the sun as it starts to rise.

And Mexico will hate that, but as long as we're gone in the morning, I mean, we've deemed them a terrorist organization.

Don't we have the right to do that?

Once that happens,

you can imagine that there might be circumstances in which that would occur.

But again, a letter of marketing reprisal allows us to avoid doing that.

That creates an additional set of difficulties for us that we wouldn't face if

we were authorizing privateers to do that.

These are matters of degree, of course.

But it would be foolish of us to assume that our only option involves sending in the Marines, so to speak.

U.S.

boots on the ground has a very different feel

than privateers going in and doing something on their own.

And it's one of the reasons why I felt it important enough.

I put out a thread on yesterday through my base Mike Lee account in which I explained a brief history of letters in March McPraisal, how they function, and that they ought to be considered here.

So,

I mean, I really like it, and I like the fact, I mean, I'm for anything constitutional.

Anything extra-constitutional, I'm against.

But this is in the, literally in the Constitution, that you can do this.

But it seems old-timey.

I mean, does anybody do this anymore?

No, and the United States hasn't done it arguably

in a couple hundred years.

Yeah.

So,

but the focus of this would be something that I think may well be perfectly suited for our time and for this situation, where you focus on disrupting supply lines, capturing high-value targets, receiving assets like boats, vehicles, cash, gold, equipment used in criminal activities.

Because we all know, you know, private entities and individuals can operate with a degree of agility that you can't replicate in government, allowing them to adapt quite quickly to the tactics of the cartels and to match those.

But what would other countries say?

I mean, is anybody using this kind of stuff anymore?

I mean, it used to happen when there were pirates,

you know, with the

black flag with the bones on it.

Does anybody use anything like this anymore?

What would they say if we started?

I don't really care, but what would they say?

I'm not aware of any country using them right now.

And I'm sure there are countries who would say, oh, this violates

this or that principle of international law, either of some treaty

that we haven't ratified or of what they refer to as customary international law, which is a fancy way of saying people don't do this anymore.

And so therefore, it violates international law.

But

all of that is beside the point if it is within our authority to do this and if we haven't forsworn the authority through some treaty that we've ratified, which I'm quite certain we have not.

And so that's why this is a tool that we shouldn't take off the table.

And it's an idea whose time may well have come.

We haven't used it in a long time.

But whereas here, we've got a different type of adversary than we sometimes face in the past.

This is not the government of Mexico, but these are

criminal

organizations within Mexico that have an international footprint that affects the United States and that have taken actions that are hostile to the interests of the United States and her citizens.

So in this circumstance, it would be irresponsible of us not to consider it.

And I think

we ought to explore this and perhaps issue some letters of of mark and reprisal.

The fact that it hasn't happened in a long time,

likely since the 1800s, doesn't mean that the power doesn't exist.

And it certainly doesn't mean that we couldn't benefit from it.

Right.

Mike, I love this idea.

I hope it gains some traction just because it will make Mexico.

You know, I was talking to my wife the other night about this and I said, you know, she said, what would Mexico say?

And I said, you know, just like you said, the people of Mexico will love this because they're tired of this.

You'd know pretty quickly who's under the thumb of the cartels and who's not,

just like we would with our government.

If somebody was coming in and saying, hey, you've got terrorist organizations and we're going to take them out.

If we knew them to be terrorist organizations, I think

we might say, well, come on now, we can take care of that.

But if they could do it for us,

I'm all for that.

I'd be all for that.

The people who would be against it are the ones that are really under the thumb of the cartels.

And the people of Mexico should know who those people are as if they don't already know.

Mike,

one last thing.

How do you think RFK is going to fare in the Senate?

Look, he faces a tough fight.

Democrats are

institutionally inclined to oppose anyone who was once part of their party and has now moved in the other direction.

Particularly someone with as prominent a name as RFK Jr.

has, and particularly someone who has shown a degree of contempt for the deep state, for the administrative state, for things that have gone wrong.

And so we're going to have to rely on, my hope is that we can pick up some Democratic votes.

You're for him?

Assume that we won't be able to, and that we need to be ready to produce enough Republicans to make sure that he gets through, just as we did with Pete Hagseth.

I think it will be a tight vote there.

I do think he'll get through, but it's by no means certain, and that's why we've got a lineup behind him to support him.

And you're for him.

Oh, 100%.

Had a great meeting with him the other day.

And

I think he brings to the table an innovative approach with a fresh set of eyes that can see that

we've created a lot of problems through our own government.

The very department that he's been asked to head as the Secretary of Health and Human Services has been a big part of the problem.

He recognizes that.

That's exactly why we need him in there.

And

our other nominees is

Cash Patel going to get through?

Yeah, okay.

So similarly to what we face with RFK,

with Cash Patel

and also with

Tulsi Gabbard,

we're going to have to confront both of those with the expectation that we may not get a single Democratic vote.

And so that's why Republicans are so important.

Remember, it's unusual for an incoming president to not have his top-level picks

supported by pretty much every member of the president's own party in confirmation votes.

And

we've got to remember that.

And so a lot of the same people

who are on the list of those who might oppose them are people who time and time again voted to confirm Democratic nominees

named by President Biden.

I hope they will give Republican nominees nominated by President Trump at least the same degree of deference that

they gave to those nominated by President Biden.

Often, by the way, with the justification that he is the elected president,

we can't run the world as if our guy were president.

Well, if that's the case, it should be the case here.

Well, that's a nice way of saying what I believe, which is vote these weasels out if they fail to support the president.

We have one shot at this.

And so far, Donald Trump and those who are supporting him are doing amazing things in the first week, things that I never thought I would see.

And

I, for one, am excited about it.

Mike, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Great to be with you, Senator Mike Lee.

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