Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed The Tennessee Star’s national political editor Neil McCabe to the newsmaker line to weigh in on the testimony of White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson, tje J6 hearing, and the forced retirement of National Guardsmen who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine.
Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line now by the greatest Washington correspondent in the country, the national political editor for The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network, Mr. Neil W. McCabe. Good morning, Neil.
McCabe: Hey, Michael. I apologize if there’s a little buzz behind me. I’m at the Capitol, and they’re power-washing the walls. So I don’t know if they have a power wash powerful enough to clean up this place, but we’ll see what they do.
Leahy: Speaking of cleanup, yesterday there was all this second-hand hearsay testimony from, in essence, a White House intern, low-level staffer, 25-year-old Cassidy Hutchinson, who had worked briefly for Mark Meadows. She made all sorts of second-hand hearsay allegations.
You had an exclusive interview with somebody who worked in the White House staff with this person. Tell us what you discovered in that interview, Neil W. McCabe.
McCabe: Yes. Joanna Miller, who now works for a political action committee, Save America – which was founded by President Donald J. Trump to support election integrity – worked with Cassidy Hutchinson at the White House, and she was really shocked and dismayed at what Hutchinson was saying.
She remembered Hutchinson taking the motorcade to the January 6 rally for the President’s speech at the Ellipse, riding in the motorcade, jumping out of the car, dancing, celebrating, and completely into it until she decided it was in her interest to not be completely into it.
And the fact that Hutchinson repeatedly puts herself in the center of everything. Two different White House lawyers are going to this 25-year-old kid and saying, Cassidy, you must stop the president to save the Republic. (Leahy laughs) As if.
Leahy: As if.
McCabe: [simulating Hutchinson’s testimony scenario] “How do you know this happened?”
“While I was standing near them and I was listening to their conversation.”
So she’s listening in on people’s conversations, and then two guys are joking around in the White House office after the rally.
And even if what they said was true, not saying even if they really said it, they were probably just joking around the way guys do. And she just, like, repeats it like it’s the truth.
And of course, the Secret Service has got to be out of its mind, because if presidents can’t trust Secret Service agents to keep their mouth shut, then basically the president is going to start saying, you know what? I don’t really need the Secret Service. I think I’ll get my own guys.
What else is the Secret Service going to do? They’re just going to walk around with pens, checking for counterfeit bills? The whole thing was such a mess.
And it really shows why we need cross-examination, because when you have a committee, they keep telling us this is a bipartisan committee, but every person on that committee was hand-selected by Nancy Pelosi.
And there was no cross-examination. There was no challenging of her story. She basically just says things that she thinks happened. She’s speculating.
I saw a headline in The Washington Post this morning that said that Trump aides say Trump wanted to lead armed protesters to the Capitol. Now that’s even a stretch. The whole thing was just bizarre. It was just so bizarre.
Leahy: What’s interesting about this, Neil, is the way the mainstream media and even Fox News breathlessly reported these “bombshell revelations.” I mean, this wouldn’t make it through 10 minutes of an actual court proceeding.
McCabe: I’ll tell you right now, and I’ve dealt with the editor, this would never make it at The Tennessee Star. (Leahy chuckles)
Carmichael: Neil, don’t you think this puts enormous pressure on Merrick Garland, because the Democrats are going to want Merrick Garland to indict President Trump?
But the fact that only one side has been presented without, as you say, any cross-examination, Merrick Garland won’t be able to run a trial like that. There’ll be cross-examination. There’ll be witnesses for the other side, and Merrick Garland could be made to look very foolish.
McCabe: I’ll tell you. Everyone who’s listening to me who’s been in the military is familiar with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 134. Article 134 is the last article in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
And it basically says, we’re going to charge you with something, but we haven’t thought of the charge yet, but it’s bad. So it’s like, after all the listing of all these offenses, they say in case you get something that’s bad, but we couldn’t think of it and we don’t have a name for it, we’re just going to charge you with 134. It’s a catch-all.
Regular civilian law does not have a catch-all that says we don’t have a law against this, but we’re just going to charge you anyway because we don’t like you.
Leahy: That’s pretty much where the J6 committee is. Speaking of military matters, you’ve done some outstanding original reporting on this Tennessee National Guard issue. There is a rally today at 11:30 at the Capitol.
About 400 members of the Tennessee National Guard tomorrow are about to be dismissed because Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says you got to get a COVID-19 shot to remain in the Tennessee National Guard.
Governor Bill Lee, as the commander in chief of the Tennessee National Guard, apparently is doing nothing to stop that. What have you discovered in this story?
McCabe: This is going on in Tennessee and in other states. And basically Bill Lee is just rolling over with the Biden administration in their push to get maximum COVID-19 vaccinations.
And when I say maximum, what I mean is two shots for the Moderna and Pfizer, or one shot of the Johnson, even. Imagine you took the Johnson only to find out it’s so dangerous we can’t give it to people anymore. But I mean, it’s like, sorry, we ordered you to take this poison.
Leahy: Our bad, right?
McCabe: Each of the services has their own program and deadline, and so the Army deadline is June 30th. Now, for the Army Reserve and the active duty, that’s not an issue. But for the National Guards, it’s an issue because they are both funded by the state and funded by the federal government.
Sometimes you’re on active duty, sometimes you’re not. There are full-time people working at the National Guard in Tennessee. It would be difficult to find them on a Friday or a Monday, but they’re full-timers.
They’re active-duty like anybody else. And so they would fall under what’s called Title X under the federal government. What’s going to happen is these guys have to be separated from the Tennessee National Guard and those separation boards and all that legal stuff has to be done by Tennessee National Guard legal officers or JAG officers.
And so is Bill Lee going to accelerate that, or is he going to do like other governors have done, like Kevin Stitt in Oklahoma, he basically said, we won’t do any separation for it. Other governors have said, we’re just going to slow-walk this thing until Biden is not president anymore.
And so it’s just going to be such a shame for people who have serious concerns about the vaccine, whether it’s medical or, frankly, religious and moral. And you give up a military career.
Let’s say you’re in 15 years, you’re five years away from a pension, and basically, because of this COVID thing, you have to give up your career when conceivably after the midterms or certainly after 2024, they’re going to say, sorry, my bad. They’re going to pardon everybody, and they’re going to change all the rules.
Listen to the interview:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
