The Joyce Kaufman Show 6/19/26 - Unlawful surveillance, New York Times misinformation, Russia collusion case,

This is the Joyce Kaufman podcast, honest, straight, and unapologelic with your host, Joyce Kaufman. They were there, and, you know, sometimes we pay attention to the members of the military, and especially when we hear something. But more often than not, unfortunately, we don't. And that's... That's truly sad. On Monday, a U.S. Air Force B-52 Strator Fortress bomber crashed shortly after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base in California, killing all eight people who were aboard. It was on a routine test mission for a radar modernization program. The crew was a mixed team of uniformed military, some government civilians and contractors on board, and two of the victims were Boeing employees. And I don't know what any of you saw, but they showed some horrifying. video of what was left after the crash, very little was left, and they knew immediately that the crash was unsurvivable. The airfield was closed and all inbound aircraft was diverted and non-commercial visitor passes suspended so that they could just focus on emergency operations and the crews responded immediately and next-of-kin notifications were... taking place because of the crash remains under investigation and I don't have a complete list of the crew members and so I'm going to refrain from reading the partial list that I have and then next week I'll be able to do justice to them. I want to identify them. And I'm looking the most recent. Well, you know what? This one seems pretty complete. The crew included Colonel Greg Watson, 53 weapons systems officer and employee of Boeing. He was an Air Force reservist assigned to the 10th Air Force and lived in Shreport, Louisiana. Also, Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Estrella 40, who's a weapons system officer assigned to the Air Force. operational test and evaluation center, Detachment 5 at Edwards Air Force Base, Major Alexander Davis, a weapons systems officer. He was 34 from the 419th flight test squadron. He lived in Lancaster, California. Major Robert D. 40, a pilot.

The 419th flight test squadron also lived there at Edwards Air Force Base along with Major Brad Hovey. The other pilot, another pilot who was 35, same squadron also lived at Edwards Air Force Base. Then there was retired Lieutenant Colonel Miles Middleton, age 50. He was a pilot and a Boeing employee. He lived in Tahatch Cappi, California. Jeremy Smith, a 32-year-old flight test engineer also with the 419 flight test squadron, lived in Rosamund, California. And finally, Christopher Rischar, age 41, he was a flight test engineer and JT4 contractor. He lived in Lancaster, California. These airmen were more than co-workers. They were friends and mentors, teammates, and valued members of the Edwards Air Force family. According to the commander of the 412 test wing, Thomas Tower, Colonel Thomas Tower, Our immediate focus is in supporting the families of the teammates we lost and ensuring that all appropriate resources are available to them during this time of unimaginable loss. And as I said earlier, the cause of the crash is under investigation. We do know that the B-52 took off at approximately 1120 in the morning on Monday. Actually, it would have been Pacific time. So it would have been later in the day, our time. Emergency crews responded, but a few hours later, they announced that the crash was not believed to be survivable. And the flight was a routine training. And that's the latest aircraft mishap in the past month. You had the mid-air collision between the two E.A.18 G. Growlers in May, and you had a Marine Corps F.A.18 Hornet crashing near a lake in the Mount Rainier region of Washington back on the 13th of June. But this was the deadliest incident involving a B-52 since back in 1982 when there was a mishap that killed nine people on board. And the bomber took off in a simulated combat flight near Mather Air Force Base. So, you know, these are people who... who serve or are affiliated with the military. They may not be enlisted or officers themselves, but they are part of teams, as he said, that conduct this incredibly dangerous work. I mean, every aircraft has to be vetted and tested and put through all kinds of trials, and this was just a routine mission.

So how, you know, how tragic, but it's no less tragic than had they been on a combat mission in the Middle East. You know, for their families, it's just a devastating fact of life that at any given moment, they could get that knock on the door, telling them that their loved one is not coming home. And the rest of us go about with our daily lives, our business, and at least the listeners on this show, you all appreciate the fact that we call them by name. Over the years, I've had more people actually praise me for doing that than anything else that I've done or ever done. I mean, the only thing that might have rivaled it was the 5,000 pairs of shoes to Washington, but people have consistently appreciated the fact that I make it a point to... call the names of the people who put their lives literally in the hands of the United States military, the Secretary of War and the President determine who gets to go into battle and who the one thing they cannot determine is who gets to come home. That's in God's hands. But we will at least always make it a point to remember them and call them by name. I think back a couple of years ago, I actually was reading a list, and the parent of one of the military members was listening. They happened to be in their car, and they were a West Palm Beach native, and they were so appreciative. They said, you know, we're going through this pain, and while the military reaches out and affords us... You know, all kinds of comfort and takes care of a lot of the practical stuff. Most people won't know what happened. And she said so to be driving in my car and to hear his name. She said, I really do appreciate that. So I don't think that happens very often. But even if it were just one time, it makes it all, it brings it home to me how important it is that we appreciate. Not just the service members, but their families. Their families have to go on, you know. And it's got to be extremely difficult to face that. I got a lot of things to talk about. I was not on the air yesterday, and I'm going to tell you that story, but I'm going to take a break first. Take a quick break, and then don't forget. To download the 850 WFTL app, you can get all kinds of breaking news there, as well as podcasts. I don't have a podcast available right now, not a new one, and I'll explain that in the next segment of the show, why I don't. So please stay right where you are. So that's a sad story. There's a lot of sad stories, unfortunately, out here.

in the real world. I'm sure that most of you are still wrestling as am I with this war that's not a war, this deal that's not a deal. It's just very frustrating from where I sit because all of this time that I have been... such an advocate and a proponent of Trump's foreign policy, I'm just left right now trying to figure out, you know, what is his foreign policy? And why are we suddenly trying to second guess everything? I did see an interesting story that I wanted to talk about. You remember years ago when the New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for the Russia collusion story? It was mind-boggling to most of us because they got it all wrong. But what's really upsetting to me today and was upsetting to me last night was they still get it wrong. Now, let me tell you what happened yesterday. As many of you know, I spend part of my time in the state of Kentucky. And I'm a girl who grew up in a city, so I didn't really know that much about the country, and I certainly didn't know much about the phenomenon of weather. And then I moved to Florida where I quickly learned about hurricanes. And I developed a... an affinity for looking at radar and maps and things like that, especially because of what I do for a living. You know, when a hurricane would come, I would always volunteer to take the overnight shift because we'd go 24 hours live because a lot of action would happen in the middle of the night and I knew that when power goes out. For many people, their transistor radio is the only thing they have to keep themselves connected. Back then, when I first started doing radio in Florida, there wasn't cell phones. So, you know, today people are connected through their cell phones at all times, basically. You know, 5G and all the rest of it. But I never knew anything about tornadoes other than what I would see on television. So the Wednesday night, we had come home from, we had eaten dinner out and we had come home. And my husband said something to me, which I thought was strange. He said, you know, I feel like something's going to happen. Now, apparently a lot of people in Kentucky knew that there was a big storm coming. We had gone to church earlier and actually had been preached about a big storm. So it was kind of interesting that he would say that. But I said, don't scare me. I'm going to bed. And at about 355 early Thursday morning, my phone went. An alarm came across my phone.

on my husband's phone and then we have a friend down from Florida who's staying with us and the alarm on her phone started going off and it said take cover tornado and I'm like what what does that mean and I thought back to all the movies or all the things that people tell you after the tornadoes have hit you know get in the bathtub with a pillow over your head get to the lowest point and you know secure building make sure everything that could fly around is secured well it was a little too late for that and we had the most amazing experience that I've ever had. Now, let me tell you right from the onset, there was no harm to our home and there was no harm to either one of us other than maybe a little emotional harm, but it was the most ferocious sound that I'd ever heard. It just so happened that the tornado passed over the ridge on which we were living. And one of the reasons that we love this area is because it's a holler, a ridge. And we were very fortunate, but our mailing address, the city in which we are closest to, did not fare so well. And tornadoes cause an enormous amount of damage. Very scary. See, you know, in Florida, we'd see the hurricane would come through and there'd be the torn branches everywhere, power lines down. Well, it's pretty much the same with a tornado, only it's in a much more concentrated area. And it's not quite as widespread as my experience with hurricanes was. But it was pretty scary, nonetheless. And the power went out. And that is to be expected. Now, I happen to live, or we happen to be, at the juncture of where power comes into this entire sort of backwards area. I'm off the grid, deliberately. And so it just so happens that the main source of electricity is adjacent to where I live. Power outages seldom, if ever, happened here. But we did have a power outage, and it lasted quite some time, and therefore that was why I could not do my show yesterday, even though I was itching to talk about it. And I also was removed. from a lot of my sources for news. Now, you can use your cell phone, and I did, and you can read a couple of different stories, but you have a very different perspective on things when you're going through a storm or just coming out of a storm. Like, I really was not thinking about Donald Trump. I really was not thinking about the Middle East.

I was thinking about my backyard, you know, and you have a different perspective when nature does what nature does. It's awesome and kind of magnificent, but it's also very scary. And a friend of mine asked me today, she said, okay, so what do you prefer? Hurricanes or... tornadoes or earthquakes, which are the three major experiences that I've ever lived through. And I said, well, I don't know. I prefer none. None of these weather catastrophes. But I have now experienced those three. And my brief encounter with an earthquake was in Los Angeles when I was with my son. And it was, I mean, things fell off the wall. Pictures came down, but it wasn't like the earth under my feet didn't crack. Although, you know, there's a fault line that they're on. You never know. But I got used to hurricanes. Now I guess I'll have to get used to tornadoes. There apparently was a lot of warning. I just didn't get it. Maybe because I primarily listen to national news and not to anything local. But I came through and we are unharmed. Our animals didn't even wake up. It was the strangest thing. Even outdoor animals didn't wake up. They were a little fussy and crazy before the storm hit, I guess kind of warning us. But then once the storm hit, nothing. They slept through it. I didn't, but they did. Once the storm hit, nothing. You know, they've slept through it. I didn't, but they did. Anyway, so that explained to me, Lucy, as Ricky Ricardo used to say. That's why I was not on the air yesterday, and you heard a best-up tape. So all is, well, I'm good. Everything's fine. But that's what happened. Let me do this. Let me take a break. Derek will not be joining me today. He has an enormous amount of stuff on his plate today, apparently. There's a lot going on in the celebrity world, and none of it's that interesting to me. Like, I don't really care if Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey don't have a marriage license doesn't bother me at all. So I'll be back, and we have a lot to talk about. So please, stay right where you are. Oh, my goodness. So a couple of important stories. You know, I was saying that years after that stupid Pulitzer Prize,

where the New York Times claimed that President Trump had no basis to claim that the federal government under President Barack Obama had spied on him during the 2016 election, or that they abused surveillance powers, despite there was quite a large body of evidence showing that both of those things happened. But... In the article about Trump's statements on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Times insisted that Trump has a long and complicated relationship with FISA, alternating between condemning it and embracing it. So during his first term, Mr. Trump posted on social media just hours before Congress was to vote on it. to suggest without evidence that the program had been abused by the Obama administration and they had surveilled his presidential campaign. Trump has plenty of evidence. to suggest that his campaign was spied on by the Obama administration, including when you look at the release of the declassified memos showing two undercover informants directed by the FBI engaged with the Trump campaign figures trying to lure information out of them. And the president also has evidence that the FBI abused surveillance rules under Obama. including the Inspector General report from the DOJ that came out in 2019 and a statement by the Department of Justice admitting that some of the surveillance was unlawful. That report found that the FBI altered evidence against Trump campaign advisor Carter Page so that they could investigate him. Kevin Kleinsmith, a former FBI attorney. He pled guilty in 2020 to altering an email for the purposes of obtaining a FISA warrant that authorized spying on Carter Page and his dealings with the Trump campaign. Page had worked with an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency dealing with Russians during the early days of the Obama administration, but Kleinsmith altered an email, saying this to make it appear as though Paige had never worked with the agency. The agency, by the way, they have just confirmed, it was the CIA. The FBI received the accurate information under Obama in 2016 and then doctored it in 2017. Or at least that's what the court records are showing. The Times said it's reporting on the challenges to reauthorize FISA Section 702 presents readers with a clear and factual picture.

The Inspector General noted that there were 17 inaccuracies and omissions that were not brought to the attention of the Office of Intelligence prior to the final FISA application that was filed against Carter Page in 2017. And that included Klein Smith's alteration, omissions from another Trump campaign aid. George Papadophilus denying anyone in the Trump campaign was collaborating with Russia and omitting statements from Page about never meeting the then campaign chairman of his 2016 presidential campaign, Paul Manafort, went to jail. That speaks to the credibility of the Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier, which claimed the opposite. Now, Page filed the lawsuit against the federal government for how he was treated, and in April of 26, the DOJ agreed to settle that lawsuit for $1.25 million or something. No American should ever face covert and unlawful surveillance based on their political view. Come on. The investigation into Carter Page, a man never charged with a single crime. was based on flawed and uncorroborated information. It was a political sham from the get-go. And the Supreme Court recently declined to revive a separate lawsuit from Page against James Comey, the former FBI director and some others for their roles in the investigation against him. Declassified records that were released by the FBI and obtained by, for instance, just the news where I read them, show an informant who also worked as a Pentagon researcher by the name of Stefan Halper was directed to meet with Page at a Virginia farm in October of 2016, while President Obama was still president. to try and elicit information about the campaign's possible ties to Russia. Halper was given, FBI gave him a codename, Mitch. It's all in these memos. A transcript of the conversations that were recorded by the FBI shows that rather than confirming contacts between the Trump campaign in Russia, Page actually disputed the allegations to Halper. The core is, this is a quote from Carter Page in the transcript, it says the core lie is that I met with these sanctioned Russian officials, several of which I have never even met in my entire life, but they said that I met them in July. Yeah, that's all in the FBI transcript. Paige wasn't, you can read this stuff now. It's all out there on Just the News and a couple of other sites that picked it up now. It's mind-boggling to me. How they got away with what they got away with so long and how they're still doing it. That's really the outrage. You know, they had no real information. It was all.

fraudulent. When the special counsel Robert Mueller did his investigation into this whole Russian collusion thing, he determined there was no criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign. Then John Durham went even further, right, the second special counsel. And he said that during the Biden administration, that the Obama era FBI and DOJ had no basis to open an investigation of Trump. you know, and Russia, any kind of collusion. Neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community had any evidence, no actual evidence of collusion, at the at least at the beginning of the commencement of the crossfire hurricane investigation. That's what Durham wrote in that 300-page report. that Congress got in, what was it, the spring of 2023. So in other words, the Obama FBI and the Obama Department of Justice opened up a probe to spy on the rival campaign's leader, without any evidence, without any justification. So, you know, don't worry. When I say we have to look into these things, it's not because of my political views. It's because as an American, I don't want the government doing things to citizens that it is not entitled to do. Carter Page was innocent of everything. And after the dismantling of the Russia collusion claims, I mean, we're still talking about this stuff. The former reporter from the New York Times, one of the ones that won the Pulitzer Prize, Jeff Gerth, he wrote a four-piece series published by the Columbia Journalism Review that explained at great length many of the media's errors when reporting about Trump and Russia in the early days of his first presidency. And one example of the times being so sure of a scoop only to end up embarrassed involved a story about members of Russian intelligence allegedly having conversations with Trump's campaign. The editor at that time, Dean Bakay, said in conversations recorded for a Showtime documentary that he wanted the top of the story to show the range and level of the alleged Russian contracts and the meetings, some of which may be completely innocent. He wanted a paragraph to explain why these contacts continue to just mess with Trump. As for the specific details, Bacquet wanted to be included in the story. The reporters simply wrote that their sources would not disclose many details. The piece did contain a disclaimer up at the top, saying that their sources so far had seen no evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians. But then in the next paragraph, it reported...

You know, all this anonymous stuff about being alarmed about the Russian Trump contacts because they occurred while Trump made his comments in Florida back in July of 2016 when he wondered whether Russia could find Hillary's missing emails. FBI agents behind the scenes shredded the report. Even, you know, Peter Strzok said that the FBI was unaware of any Trump advisors engaging in conversations. But the FBI didn't say a word out loud to the public. So the secret surveillance, all of this that was going on during that Obama administration is illegal and constitutional and just immoral. So guess what? The Times is added again. Yeah. They not only have stood by their reporting for all these years, they brag about having won a Pulitzer for it, saying that they thoroughly pursued credible claims, fact-checked, edited, and ultimately produced groundbreaking journalism that has proven true time and time again. But that's not true. the story was not true. And they did not do it in a manner that gives anybody any confidence in the New York Times, which is why they're pretty much in the toilet. So we'll see. There's a government transparency task force that the Trump administration has set up that is... John Solomon is actually working with them as an unpaid person helping to identify information that can and should be released to the public. And during this period of time, he's no longer the editor-in-chief of just the news. But he's got a great staff, so I will continue to use them as one of my primary sources, a go-to source for sure. But amazing to me, that the Times is still writing stories about Russian collusion. You can't make this up. Now we have, you know, I don't do it very often, but I just do a quick Zohran Mamdani story because I was a New Yorker. You know, wherever you grew up or were born, it always has a special place in your heart. I would never go back, but, you know, has a special place. This mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is trying to remake the city's congressional delegation to look just like him and to, you know, cement his power block within the Democratic Party because he's popular in the city. He's a democratic socialist, and he has endorsed three candidates who are ideologically the same. They're all considered far left by any traditional Democrat. But this is what he needs to do to expand his influence in the city. He is the mayor, his honor. And in particular, he's endorsed these.

candidates to unseat current members of the Democratic Caucus. You have Dan Goldman, who's a two-term Democrat, and Adriano Aspreya, who's a congressional Hispanic caucus leader. Yeah, Zohran Mamdani's endorsements and campaigning against incumbent Democrat lawmakers. That's going to put him on a collision course with the establishment Democratic leaders, particularly Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, who has been told by all the party higher-ups, you better win us a majority in the upcoming midterm elections. So now he's got to divert his financial resources, campaign funds, to defend incumbents. And two of them. are officially endorsed by the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Unbelievable. People close to Zohran Mamdani say that his decision to endorse candidates who challenge the establishment guys and bucking all this party leadership, this is him radically changing the Democratic Party, moving it towards his vision. He's seeing that opportunity, and he's taking it. Yeah. Unbelievable. He's got Brad Lander, the former New York City controller, who once ran against Zohran Mamdani for the nomination for the mayor's office, but who then gave his backing to the Democratic Socialist upstart, Zohran Mamdani. Brad Lander has made his opposition to Israel a centerpiece of his campaign. Brad Lander, who is himself Jewish. has embraced all the language and the policy agenda of the pro-Palestinian movement, including describing Israel as a genocidal mania. I mean, come on. He said, as a proud Jewish New Yorker, I will join you in the fight to end occupation and apartheid and genocide. Come on, guys, you think he can win in New York? I don't know, maybe. I guess so.

Zohran Mamdani, you know, he's anti-Israel, and he's the mayor. And there's another one. Claire Valdez, a New York assembly member and union organizer. She's another one. Housing for all. No police. Israel stinks. I think it will, you know. Medicare for all. Queer and Trans-Liberation. I was looking at her website. It's Crazyville. She's in a tight race with the Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who's backed by the outgoing rep Nidia Velazquez. But it's all these progressives. And they're all over the country. It's not just New York. So these are... Trouble times. The storm is brewing, and I don't mean a tornado. Don't forget, coming up after me is Guy Benson, followed by Will Kane. Then it's Joe Pags, Lars Larson, the overnight guys, until 6 a.m. No, no, it's the weekend. Forget that. Because I didn't work on Thursday. I'm out of sorts. But no. At the end of the overnight, guys, you're officially in the weekend. And Jennifer Ross, Stephen Deiner, Eric Erickson, Brian Kilmeade and I, we won't be back until Monday. So I still have a segment left in today's show. Stay right where you are. So one guy who has really earned a great deal of my respect is John Fetterman, the knucklehead from Pennsylvania. I don't know why he's a Democrat. I really don't. But he again broke with his party and voted against advancing a war powers resolution. which was to stop the Senate from limiting President Trump's ability to attack Iran. And he lost a staffer over the first time he voted that way. And on June 16th, the U.S. Senate voted on a resolution that if it advanced, would have called for the removal of the military. With John Fetterman's vote against the measure, the resolution failed 48 to 47. He has repeatedly voted against such measures, previously casting a deciding vote back in May. You have five senators, Michael Bennett, the Democrat from Colorado, Josh Hawley, the Republican from Missouri, Cory Booker, the Democrat from New Jersey. Bernie Sanders, the Independent Democrat, from Vermont, and Mitch McConnell, the Republican from Kentucky, who's in the hospital, I believe right now. Anyway, they abstained from voting. And then Republican senators Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, Susan Collins from Maine, Rand Paul from Kentucky, and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, broke from their party to vote in favor of the resolution. Not going to be, not going to be invited to Trump's Christmas party this year. I can tell you that. But John Fetterman will be. With John Fetterman's vote, nothing changes in Trump's ability to order attacks on Iran. But his vote came just a day before the U.S. and Iran signed this whatever agreement.

which calls for an immediate end to hostilities on all fronts and lays out expectations for the next round of talks between the two countries. Look, you know how I feel about it. And I'm not going to change that feeling anytime soon. John Fetterman has repeatedly said that the Trump administration's attacks on Iran were warranted. And that's what I say. It's not whether you're on pro-war or anti-war. I am absolutely no nuclear Iran. That's what I'm pro. And Iran's regime still exists. It might be under new leadership, but they're still in place. And that's all I know. Why do we have to bow down to them? They have no ability to win anything at this point. But apparently the president wants the gas prices to go down. I don't know. Anyway, I thank you for your time, this time, until next time. I do have a plan, and that plan is to be back here on Monday at 3 o'clock. If it be his will, and he delays his coming. Remember that what lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. So wherever you are, just be yourself. Everybody else is taken. And don't worry about me because now having come through the final climate craziness, the tornado, I feel pretty confident. I'm in the ark. God bless you. God bless Israel. And God bless the USA. See you Monday. This has been the Joyce Kaufman podcast. Available everywhere you get your podcasts.