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  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 Richard Grenell, the former Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, told Breitbart News this weekend that President Donald Trump making him the first openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history has nothing to do with “identity politics” and simply reflected that the president picks the most effective people for federal positions. “The one thing I love about President Trump is he doesn’t care about these issues,” Grenell said on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel. “He doesn’t play identity politics. You know, somebody recently asked me how many gays and lesbians work in the Trump administration. I had to answer, ‘I have no idea. I really don’t know.’ This person said to me, ‘well, there you go — that’s the reason — because we had 2,410 in the Obama administration, the Obama-Biden administration.’ I said, ‘I’d be pretty offended that I was on a list that says here’s our gay and lesbian list.’ Thank God we don’t keep a list. Thank God we don’t hire people because they come out of a box and say ‘here is a black, here is a Hispanic, here is a gay person.’ President Trump, I know him well, he doesn’t care about these types of issues. They’re irrelevant characterizations about someone. What is relevant is whether or not they can do the job.” Log Cabin Republicans this past week released a video of Grenell, which the president shared on Twitter, hyping the fact that it was Trump — a Republican — who had the first-ever openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history, something former Democrat President Barack Obama never did. “When I’m talking to President Trump, I’m talking about NordStream 2, I’m talking about troops in Germany, I’m talking about the table of substance and substantive issues,” Grenell told Breitbart News. “What’s different about the Democrats is every four years they want to bring out a black person or a Hispanic person or a gay person or a woman and say, ‘look at this, we’ve got these extra people that we’re counting as part of us — aren’t we great?’ But then, the decisions are made by the elite men in a backroom. Donald Trump doesn’t do that. He’s got a table of advisers who are all sorts of different parts of America, and they’re there because they’re the best people he can find for these issues.” Grenell continued, “I think we have a completely different philosophy about gay and lesbian issues, and when we articulate that to the gay community, there’s a huge response. People are super smart and substantive and are tired of being at the table down the hallway. They want to be at the main table. They don’t want to have like what the State Department was pushing for in a gay czar and they were hitting Trump saying, ‘you don’t even have a gay office or gay department at the State Department.’ I said, ‘Thank God we don’t.’ Because every single bureau at the State Department, whether it’s the Middle East bureau or Latin America bureau, should have in their mindset: ‘we’re going to treat everybody the same.’ We don’t need to make a policy and then go down the hallway to check in with the gay czar to see how or what extra thing do you need here to be happy. I don’t want to be the extra. I don’t want to be taken out of the box every four years and be paraded around and sent out on a press release that says, ‘here’s our list.’ I want to be the guy who’s making the decisions at the table and that’s what Donald Trump allows us to do.” LISTEN TO RIC GRENELL ON BREITBART NEWS SATURDAY: While Grenell was leading the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), he declassified many documents and transcripts as part of a broader nonpartisan push for transparency from the government as it relates to the effort the Intelligence Community embarked on during the Obama administration to spy on President Trump’s campaign. “Let me just say briefly that transparency is not political,” Grenell said when asked about this. “It shouldn’t be viewed as political. I’ll give you that it is a very rare concept in Washington, DC, because they like to have decisions made by a few people in the basement. It made me quite sad for our country when I became acting Director of National Intelligence and I started reading about what the Democrats were presenting when it came to this Russia collusion. What’s said on television to the American people was one thing, and that’s ‘oh there is this really incredible Russian collusion.’ Then when these same people were under oath in the basement of the House committee, in Congress when they were alone with their lawyers under oath, they said, ‘we didn’t see anything; we don’t know anything; nothing illegal happened.’ You can read these transcripts. You can go to the ODNI website. You can read exactly what they said under oath. Where I come from, when you say one thing to a few people and then you’re called on the carpet publicly and you say something else, we call that a lie. What has happened in Washington, DC, is this is a consistent part of everyone’s day. They present information to the American people that’s not true. They just keep getting away with it. So when I went in to head ODNI, I wanted to just give as much information as possible, obviously not giving away sources and obviously not giving away the method in which we collect or how we got our information — sources and methods must be protected, we get that. But, what I found is a whole bunch of information was classified just to protect government agencies that had messed up. It was a PR move to protect a brand of a government agency. I think this is why many people call it the swamp — they kind of protect each other; it’s very murky and it’s unclear. Transparency is called for.” Grenell also said, adding that President Trump agrees with him, that the federal government should spread its agencies and departments out across the United States rather than centralizing the power of the government in Washington, DC. “I want to just say, I think it’s super important — and I know Donald Trump does as well — that government agencies should not all be collected in Washington, DC,” Grenell said. “We’re getting the same pool of people for the Education Department, Interior, DNI, all of the different government agencies pull from the same group of people in the Washington, DC, metro area. Those people are in on the game. They know that you can’t speak out too much, otherwise, you won’t get promoted. They know that their neighbors are a big shot at the Labor Department, and if they ever wanted to move over, they better play the game. They know that their other neighbor is a media reporter and that media reporter needs them to leak in order to have really good neighborly relations. This whole thing is a system we call the swamp. It’s really true, and I believe that one of the solutions is to move out some of the agencies and begin to say, ‘no more building up in Washington,’ and maybe, ‘we’re going to move the Labor Department to Kansas,’ or maybe, ‘we’re going to move the Interior Department to South Dakota.’ Why can’t we have Health and Human Services based in Florida? This is especially important as the Washington, DC, crowd is talking about making D.C. a state. Washington, DC, was designed to be a place where the federal government was, where you went temporarily and then you left. You moved back home. Home wasn’t supposed to be Washington, DC. It was supposed to be somewhere else. And yet, what we have is a system, over time, where we have made Washington, DC, a home to the point where they want to be a state. Well, if you want to be a state, you’re going to have to get rid of all these agencies that are there because it’s not fair to put all these agencies in one state.” Grenell also laid out the difference between Trump’s America First vision for foreign policy versus Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden’s globalist vision for the United States on the world stage. “America First is all about making decisions for America, first. We have to protect our own people,” Grenell said. “This other idea that Joe Biden has been pounding is that our allies get to be in consensus with us. So you’ve got the approach from Donald Trump who’s saying, ‘what’s good for America?’ and then you’ve got the Joe Biden approach where he’s saying, ‘what’s good for all of our allies?’” “I spent eight years inside the U.N. Security Council,” Grenell continued. “There are 15 countries that sit inside the U.N. Security Council. Trying to get 15 countries to agree to a statement, let alone implementing policy — trying to get 15 countries to agree to a statement means that that statement is mush when it comes out. Everybody gets to veto a word or a phrase or an idea, and so, it’s the lowest common denominator of what 15 countries believe. I’ll give you a more real-world example: Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of the genocide in Syria where Bashar Al-Assad gassed children. The Obama-Biden team didn’t do anything. They had a front-row seat. They were watching it, and they didn’t get up out of their chair, and the reason why they didn’t do anything is because ‘consensus’ stopped them. Instead of making decisions for America’s national security, to stop ISIS’ growth in Syria and to stop Bashar Al-Assad, instead of acting on behalf of America, they got together with a whole bunch of Europeans and a whole bunch of countries in the Arab world and they asked, ‘what should we do?’ Well, seven months later, they were still talking because of this ‘collective consensus.’ Now, consensus is good if we can get all those countries to back our idea. That’s why at the United Nations, I always say, we need somebody who’s really strong and somebody can say, ‘get with us, here’s the plan.’ The U.N. doesn’t work unless the United States is in the lead. The problem is we don’t need to be in the lead on every single issue. Contrast that with Donald Trump being in office, and he did two things to really make a difference in the Middle East while bringing troops home and not starting new wars: He took out Soleimani who was the terrorist strategist inside of Iran. He took him out. The second thing he did was when Assad crossed the red line that Barack Obama put down and failed to act, within a couple of months of the Trump administration coming in when Assad crossed the red line, Donald Trump acted and it worked. It really sent a strong message to the Middle East. It’s why we have peace between the Emiratis and the Israelis today, and we don’t want a return to the Joe Biden policies.” 

  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 White House Senior Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway announced Sunday that she would step down from her position to focus her time on her family. “This is completely my choice and my voice,” she said in a statement. “In time, I will announce future plans. For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama.” Conway will still speak at the Republican National Convention this week, a White House source tells Breitbart News. She will reportedly begin the process of transitioning out of the White House at the end of August. “As many convention speakers will demonstrate this week, President Trump’s leadership has had a measurable, positive impact on the peace and prosperity of the nation, and on millions of Americans who feel forgotten no more,” she wrote. Conway is one of the longest-lasting senior aides to the president, entering the administration at the beginning after serving as the manager of the president’s winning 2016 campaign. “The past four years have allowed me blessings beyond compare as a part of history on Election Night 2016 and as Senior Counselor to the President,” she wrote. “It’s been heady. It’s been humbling.” Conway was notable for her connection to the pro-life movement and her efforts to fight the opioid addiction epidemic as well as other coalitions. She also served as a fearless defender of the president in corporate media. “The incredible men, women, and children we’ve met along the way have reaffirmed my later-in-life experience that public service can be meaningful and consequential,” she wrote. Conway’s position at the White House was burdened by her husband George Conway’s vocal opposition to the president, and the Never Trump Republican faction and Democrats highlighted his opposition to the president as a weapon. The Conways have become gossip fodder for the swamp in Washington, DC. George Conway teamed up with the Never Trump Lincoln Project to actively campaign against the president. Kellyanne Conway acknowledged her political disagreements with her husband and said that he would “make changes” to focus on their family. “We disagree about plenty but we are united on what matters most: the kids,” she wrote. George Conway said on Twitter that he would step back from the Lincoln Project and take a hiatus from Twitter, a venue where he has repeatedly savaged the president. “So I’m withdrawing from Project Lincoln to devote more time to family matters. And I’ll be taking a Twitter hiatus,” he wrote on Twitter. “Needless to say, I continue to support the Lincoln Project and its mission. Passionately.” 

  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 Sunday on New York WABC 770 AM radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich slammed 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for his DNC speech accepting the party’s nomination. Gingrich admitted to host John Catsimatidis that Biden gave “the best speech of his career,” but he criticized the “heavy” tone of the speech. According to Gingrich, it was a “big mistake” to make the theme of his remarks “light versus darkness” with the Democrats being the light. “[O]verall, it was pretty flat,” Gingrich said of the convention. “And then you got to Kamala’s speech, and I thought it was a little clunky and not delivered very well. She reminded me a lot of a sort of a high school graduating president who wasn’t quite sure about talking to an audience. And then Biden gave what I thought was probably the best speech of his career. I’m pretty sure it was written by people who wrote for Clinton and Obama because it had the rhythm and the lyrics that those two guys get. And he delivered it well. To be fair, I thought he did a fine job. But it was a bit heavy.” “Picking the theme of the light versus the darkness was a big mistake,” he continued. “You see it right there in New York. When you have Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue totally trashed, that’s the darkness. Now, when you have the mayor cutting the police budget by $1 billion, that’s the darkness. When you have people tearing down statues, that’s the darkness. And then ironically, in the end, it’s going to turn out that Harris and Biden are on the side of the darkness. Having the best African-American employment in history, having the best Latino employment in history, those are the things Trump achieved. That’s the light. Or being in favor of the police, and standing firmly with those who are trying to protect our lives. That’s the light. They are strategically in an almost impossible situation. And I think that will become more and more obvious over the next two or three weeks. And then sometime in September, they will start getting desperate.” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent 

  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 President Donald Trump on Sunday announced that the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the use of convalescent plasma to treat coronavirus for emergency use. The president spoke about the approved treatment during a White House press conference on Sunday evening. “This is a powerful therapy that transfuses very, very strong antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to help treat patients battling a current infection,” Trump wrote. “It’s had an incredible rate of success.” The treatment takes convalescent plasma from blood donated from patients that have recovered from coronavirus. Under current FDA guidelines, convalescent plasma is regulated as an “investigative product.” “We broke the logjam over the last week,” Trump said when asked about the difficulty getting the treatment approved for emergency use by the FDA. The president thanked FDA administrator, Dr. Steven Hahn, for helping lead the project. “It is only made possible because of Operation Warp Speed. That is, everybody working together,” Trump said referring to his administration’s effort to speed treatments and vaccines for coronavirus. Trump said that approvals were years ahead of schedule and previewed exciting news about vaccines in the upcoming days. “We are removing unnecessary barriers and delays, not by cutting corners, but by marshaling the full power of the federal government,” he said. Hahn said that the expanded access program for convalescent plasma was started at the Mayo Clinic in April and over 70,000 people had received treatment. “This is one of the largest expanded access programs in the history of FDA, so a very successful approach to evaluating how convalescent plasma would work,” he said. Hahn said that the scientists at the FDA evaluated both the data from the program and over a dozen published studies before approving the treatment. Breitbart News has not independently confirmed the data at the time of publication. In a June 3 article, the JAMA network outlined the history of the use of convalescent plasma dating as far back as the Spanish Flu epidemic and identified the treatment as a potential route to coronavirus containment. A later study published by the JAMA Network, however, concluded that the use of convalescent plasma as a treatment is less effective in severe coronavirus cases. “In the optimal patients, as described by Secretary Azar, treated with convalescent plasma at the highest tiers there was a 35 percent improvement in survival,” Hahn said. Hahn said that the FDA would continue evaluating the data and study the emergency use of the treatment. “We’re waiting for more data, and we’re going to continue gathering more data, but this clearly meets the criteria we’ve established for the emergency use authorization and we’re very pleased with these results,” he said. Hahn said that everyone recovering from the Covid-19 should act to donate their blood. “If you’ve recovered from Covid-19, please donate, you could save a life,” he said. 

  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 The 2020 Republican National Convention (RNC) is preparing to kick off its four-day celebration with appearances throughout the week from several prominent, conservative voices. This year’s convention, which carries the theme “Honoring the Great American Story,” will begin on Monday and conclude on Thursday. Prominent speakers who will take part in the convention include President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and multiple Republican representatives and senators. With this year’s convention being largely virtual due to health concerns over the coronavirus, no more than 336 delegates will meet in Charlotte, North Carolina, to formally nominate President Trump as the party’s nominee. Below are a list of speakers and themes for each night of the 2020 convention. Monday – “A Land of Heroes” Speakers include Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones, Amy Johnson Ford, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Natalie Harp, Charlie Kirk, Kim Klacik, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, Sean Parnell, Andrew Pollack, and Tanya Weinreis. Tuesday – “Land of Promise” Speakers include First Lady Melania Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump, Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Núñez, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Abby Johnson, Jason Joyce, Myron Lizer, Mary Ann Mendoza, Megan Pauley, Cris Peterson, John Peterson, and Nicholas Sandmann. Wednesday – “Land of Opportunity” Speakers include Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, Kellyanne Conway, Keith Kellogg, Jack Brewer, Sister Dede Byrne, Madison Cawthorn, Scott Dane, Clarence Henderson, Ryan Holets, Michael McHale, Burgess Owens, and Lara Trump. Thursday – “Land of Greatness” Speakers include President Donald Trump, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Ivanka Trump, Ja’Ron Smith, Ann Dorn, Debbie Flood, former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani, Franklin Graham, Alice Johnson, Wade Mayfield, Carl and Marsha Mueller, and Dana White. Tony Sayegh, who is managing the program for the GOP convention, joined Washington Political Editor Matt Boyle on Breitbart News Saturday over the weekend to discuss the event. “Obviously this has been a very unconventional convention,” Sayegh told Boyle of the virtual convention. “We have transformed this into something unique.” “It really doesn’t matter where it ended up,” Sayegh said in regards to the location of the convention. “We have the best message and the best messenger in the president. And we have four years of great, great progress in this country that is almost unparalleled in this period of time that we want to highlight.” “We are turning our convention over to the American people, the forgotten men and women in this country that the president has dedicated his presidency to fighting for,” Sayegh continued. “We’re gonna have a people’s convention, much to the opposite of what the Democrats did with their political, establishment elite stars.” Sayegh also said the convention would heavily focus on the “consequences that would come from a Biden administration.” To listen to Sayegh’s full interview with Breitbart News Saturday, click here. 

  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 Protesters with Black Lives Matter signs and shirts shouted at diners who were seated on restaurant patios throughout Northwest Washington, DC, over the weekend as part of an “education” campaign. With many Washington restaurants now featuring patio seating due to coronavirus restrictions, protesters have been increasingly targeting diners now accessible from the streets. On Saturday, several pro-Black Lives Matter and other associated groups organized to protest throughout Northwest Washington, DC, which includes the affluent Georgetown and Dupont Circle neighborhoods. As the sun started going down, the protesters first targeted diners at restaurants on P Street NW near Dupont Circle. Protesters shouted into megaphones and held signs that said, “Black Lives Matter,” according to tweets by Deadspin journalist Chuck Modiano. Modiano, who apparently accompanied the protesters, tweeted: “#DCProtests confront white spaces and read facts on Black Lives murdered by police.” #DCProtests confront white spaces and read facts on Black Lives murdered by police pic.twitter.com/Dm7rMZ2oTe — ChuckModi (@ChuckModi1) August 23, 2020 Modiano also posted a video of an agitated restaurant staff member talking to the protesters. “Restaurant staff member comes out to argue w/protesters but customer approves,” he tweeted. “They need to know. Everybody needs to know” Restaurant staff member comes out to argue w/protesters but customer approves . In weeks covering #DCProtests, Black customers are supportive. Many white ppl too. So we must define “angry customer” as a distinctly white issue. pic.twitter.com/P6n16DP0x1 — ChuckModi (@ChuckModi1) August 23, 2020 Later, another group carrying a large banner that said, “Free the people, fight the power, f**k the police,” converged on Dupont Circle and stopped in front of a restaurant named The Admiral, according to a video posted by Modiano. #DCProtests at DuPont Circle still going strong. One of three different protest actions tonite pic.twitter.com/xAAvf8WLv0 — ChuckModi (@ChuckModi1) August 23, 2020 At The Admiral, protesters yelled at diners seated on the patio. One diner confronted the protesters while another person tried to hold him back. The diner is heard yelling, “Get out of our neighborhood.” He was also seen spitting toward the protesters after things got heated. The woman the diner allegedly spit on claimed he “instigated” the confrontation by “yelling and pushing bushes at protesters” as they recited names of “[Black Indigenous People of Color] murdered by [the Metropolitan Police Department].” I’m the black woman he FULLY SPIT ON during a pandemic after he instigated by yelling and pushing bushes at protestors reciting names of BIPOC murdered by MPD. The police did NOTHING except threaten protestors with mace & let the attacker get away. #dcprotests #WHODOYOUPROTECT https://t.co/38OwO6vEVM — Josie (@josielisettem) August 23, 2020 Modiano and another journalist entered the restaurant patio area to keep filming the diner: An angry white man got into my friend @ChuckModi1 face he tried to stop the recording and he was right at his face things are getting very intense right now he tried to snatch his phone out his hand #dcprotest #dcprotests #FTPmarch #Blacklivesmatter #blmprotest #acab pic.twitter.com/6kRxPgI7Rq — RawsMedia™ (@rawsmedia) August 23, 2020 Protesters then moved east on P Street NW to the Logan Circle area, where they continued to harass diners. Again, most people in restaurant clap for protesters after they are done reading facts. Always one or two really angry white ppl. #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/uR7DkpMyJk — ChuckModi (@ChuckModi1) August 23, 2020 Some diners expressed their support for the protesters, including a woman who allegedly saw a police officer shake his head at the protesters. She demanded his “badge number.” Modiano tweeted later, “Restaurant Education [F*** the Police] March continues.” Later that night, protesters were seen in Georgetown, carrying the “free the people, fight the power, f**k the police” banner and chanting, “No justice, no peace! No racist police!” and “Cops and the Klan go hand in hand!” #DCProtests #BLM Protests continue in the affluent neighborhood of Georgetown pic.twitter.com/c53F1GcXtr — Mr. Fantastic aka Static Shock (@ltrain87x) August 23, 2020 He tweeted a video of protesters from last week yelling at diners about their “complacency.” “Your complacency is the reason why we have to be out here. Your silence is participation”#DCProtests last Saturday. Another FTP March in DC tonite pic.twitter.com/QlYTvgrOaV — ChuckModi (@ChuckModi1) August 22, 2020 Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter or on Facebook. 

  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 Boisterous left-wing protesters demonstrating against the Republican National Convention (RNC) intimidated diners at a Charlotte, North Carolina, restaurant Saturday night while they clogged up the streets. Protesters engaged with a man leaving a restaurant in Charlotte’s South End neighborhood around 11:00 p.m., and called him a “gentrifier,” the Charlotte Observer reported. Demonstrators in the South End, marching in their second night against the RNC to protest police brutality and neighborhood gentrification, yelled, “White Silence Equals Violence.” A person in the crowd also appeared to spray silly string at someone appearing to confront the protesters. The protesters also shouted, “the blood of Breonna Taylor,” referencing the March 13 death of Breonna Taylor, 26, at the hands of the police when officers searched her home for illegal drugs. Earlier in Charlotte, NC pic.twitter.com/laDKWvxT8R — Kitty Shackleford (@KittyLists) August 23, 2020 Officials, as well as a police officer and Taylor’s boyfriend, claimed that the officers knocked on Taylor’s apartment door, presented themselves, and only opened fire after Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, started shooting. Police made several arrests after midnight. The night’s protests were, for the most part, nonviolent, but at times, tense. Police still had to deploy pepper spray to break up the crowd. At least five protesters were arrested during the exchange. Two were arrested for assaulting police officers, one was arrested for blocking the road with debris, a fourth demonstrator was arrested for repeatedly aggressing on the police line, and a fifth protester was arrested for being armed with a gun. WBTV reported that the far-left group Charlotte Uprising was posting on social media advertisements about protests beginning at Marshall Park at 8:30 p.m. this weekend. Their message was to stop social injustice and protest against President Donald Trump and the police. Although the RNC has a scaled back presence this year, delegates began arriving in Charlotte this weekend, and Trump is expected to make an appearance in the city on Monday. 

  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 Richard Grenell, the former Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, told Breitbart News this weekend that President Donald Trump making him the first openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history has nothing to do with “identity politics” and simply reflected that the president picks the most effective people for federal positions. “The one thing I love about President Trump is he doesn’t care about these issues,” Grenell said on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel. “He doesn’t play identity politics. You know, somebody recently asked me how many gays and lesbians work in the Trump administration. I had to answer, ‘I have no idea. I really don’t know.’ This person said to me, ‘well, there you go — that’s the reason — because we had 2,410 in the Obama administration, the Obama-Biden administration.’ I said, ‘I’d be pretty offended that I was on a list that says here’s our gay and lesbian list.’ Thank God we don’t keep a list. Thank God we don’t hire people because they come out of a box and say ‘here is a black, here is a Hispanic, here is a gay person.’ President Trump, I know him well, he doesn’t care about these types of issues. They’re irrelevant characterizations about someone. What is relevant is whether or not they can do the job.” Log Cabin Republicans this past week released a video of Grenell, which the president shared on Twitter, hyping the fact that it was Trump — a Republican — who had the first-ever openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history, something former Democrat President Barack Obama never did. “When I’m talking to President Trump, I’m talking about NordStream 2, I’m talking about troops in Germany, I’m talking about the table of substance and substantive issues,” Grenell told Breitbart News. “What’s different about the Democrats is every four years they want to bring out a black person or a Hispanic person or a gay person or a woman and say, ‘look at this, we’ve got these extra people that we’re counting as part of us — aren’t we great?’ But then, the decisions are made by the elite men in a backroom. Donald Trump doesn’t do that. He’s got a table of advisers who are all sorts of different parts of America, and they’re there because they’re the best people he can find for these issues.” Grenell continued, “I think we have a completely different philosophy about gay and lesbian issues, and when we articulate that to the gay community, there’s a huge response. People are super smart and substantive and are tired of being at the table down the hallway. They want to be at the main table. They don’t want to have like what the State Department was pushing for in a gay czar and they were hitting Trump saying, ‘you don’t even have a gay office or gay department at the State Department.’ I said, ‘Thank God we don’t.’ Because every single bureau at the State Department, whether it’s the Middle East bureau or Latin America bureau, should have in their mindset: ‘we’re going to treat everybody the same.’ We don’t need to make a policy and then go down the hallway to check in with the gay czar to see how or what extra thing do you need here to be happy. I don’t want to be the extra. I don’t want to be taken out of the box every four years and be paraded around and sent out on a press release that says, ‘here’s our list.’ I want to be the guy who’s making the decisions at the table and that’s what Donald Trump allows us to do.” LISTEN TO RIC GRENELL ON BREITBART NEWS SATURDAY: While Grenell was leading the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), he declassified many documents and transcripts as part of a broader nonpartisan push for transparency from the government as it relates to the effort the Intelligence Community embarked on during the Obama administration to spy on President Trump’s campaign. “Let me just say briefly that transparency is not political,” Grenell said when asked about this. “It shouldn’t be viewed as political. I’ll give you that it is a very rare concept in Washington, DC, because they like to have decisions made by a few people in the basement. It made me quite sad for our country when I became acting Director of National Intelligence and I started reading about what the Democrats were presenting when it came to this Russia collusion. What’s said on television to the American people was one thing, and that’s ‘oh there is this really incredible Russian collusion.’ Then when these same people were under oath in the basement of the House committee, in Congress when they were alone with their lawyers under oath, they said, ‘we didn’t see anything; we don’t know anything; nothing illegal happened.’ You can read these transcripts. You can go to the ODNI website. You can read exactly what they said under oath. Where I come from, when you say one thing to a few people and then you’re called on the carpet publicly and you say something else, we call that a lie. What has happened in Washington, DC, is this is a consistent part of everyone’s day. They present information to the American people that’s not true. They just keep getting away with it. So when I went in to head ODNI, I wanted to just give as much information as possible, obviously not giving away sources and obviously not giving away the method in which we collect or how we got our information — sources and methods must be protected, we get that. But, what I found is a whole bunch of information was classified just to protect government agencies that had messed up. It was a PR move to protect a brand of a government agency. I think this is why many people call it the swamp — they kind of protect each other; it’s very murky and it’s unclear. Transparency is called for.” Grenell also said, adding that President Trump agrees with him, that the federal government should spread its agencies and departments out across the United States rather than centralizing the power of the government in Washington, DC. “I want to just say, I think it’s super important — and I know Donald Trump does as well — that government agencies should not all be collected in Washington, DC,” Grenell said. “We’re getting the same pool of people for the Education Department, Interior, DNI, all of the different government agencies pull from the same group of people in the Washington, DC, metro area. Those people are in on the game. They know that you can’t speak out too much, otherwise, you won’t get promoted. They know that their neighbors are a big shot at the Labor Department, and if they ever wanted to move over, they better play the game. They know that their other neighbor is a media reporter and that media reporter needs them to leak in order to have really good neighborly relations. This whole thing is a system we call the swamp. It’s really true, and I believe that one of the solutions is to move out some of the agencies and begin to say, ‘no more building up in Washington,’ and maybe, ‘we’re going to move the Labor Department to Kansas,’ or maybe, ‘we’re going to move the Interior Department to South Dakota.’ Why can’t we have Health and Human Services based in Florida? This is especially important as the Washington, DC, crowd is talking about making D.C. a state. Washington, DC, was designed to be a place where the federal government was, where you went temporarily and then you left. You moved back home. Home wasn’t supposed to be Washington, DC. It was supposed to be somewhere else. And yet, what we have is a system, over time, where we have made Washington, DC, a home to the point where they want to be a state. Well, if you want to be a state, you’re going to have to get rid of all these agencies that are there because it’s not fair to put all these agencies in one state.” Grenell also laid out the difference between Trump’s America First vision for foreign policy versus Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden’s globalist vision for the United States on the world stage. “America First is all about making decisions for America, first. We have to protect our own people,” Grenell said. “This other idea that Joe Biden has been pounding is that our allies get to be in consensus with us. So you’ve got the approach from Donald Trump who’s saying, ‘what’s good for America?’ and then you’ve got the Joe Biden approach where he’s saying, ‘what’s good for all of our allies?’” “I spent eight years inside the U.N. Security Council,” Grenell continued. “There are 15 countries that sit inside the U.N. Security Council. Trying to get 15 countries to agree to a statement, let alone implementing policy — trying to get 15 countries to agree to a statement means that that statement is mush when it comes out. Everybody gets to veto a word or a phrase or an idea, and so, it’s the lowest common denominator of what 15 countries believe. I’ll give you a more real-world example: Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of the genocide in Syria where Bashar Al-Assad gassed children. The Obama-Biden team didn’t do anything. They had a front-row seat. They were watching it, and they didn’t get up out of their chair, and the reason why they didn’t do anything is because ‘consensus’ stopped them. Instead of making decisions for America’s national security, to stop ISIS’ growth in Syria and to stop Bashar Al-Assad, instead of acting on behalf of America, they got together with a whole bunch of Europeans and a whole bunch of countries in the Arab world and they asked, ‘what should we do?’ Well, seven months later, they were still talking because of this ‘collective consensus.’ Now, consensus is good if we can get all those countries to back our idea. That’s why at the United Nations, I always say, we need somebody who’s really strong and somebody can say, ‘get with us, here’s the plan.’ The U.N. doesn’t work unless the United States is in the lead. The problem is we don’t need to be in the lead on every single issue. Contrast that with Donald Trump being in office, and he did two things to really make a difference in the Middle East while bringing troops home and not starting new wars: He took out Soleimani who was the terrorist strategist inside of Iran. He took him out. The second thing he did was when Assad crossed the red line that Barack Obama put down and failed to act, within a couple of months of the Trump administration coming in when Assad crossed the red line, Donald Trump acted and it worked. It really sent a strong message to the Middle East. It’s why we have peace between the Emiratis and the Israelis today, and we don’t want a return to the Joe Biden policies.” 

  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 White House Senior Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway announced Sunday that she would step down from her position to focus her time on her family. “This is completely my choice and my voice,” she said in a statement. “In time, I will announce future plans. For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama.” Conway will still speak at the Republican National Convention this week, a White House source tells Breitbart News. She will reportedly begin the process of transitioning out of the White House at the end of August. “As many convention speakers will demonstrate this week, President Trump’s leadership has had a measurable, positive impact on the peace and prosperity of the nation, and on millions of Americans who feel forgotten no more,” she wrote. Conway is one of the longest-lasting senior aides to the president, entering the administration at the beginning after serving as the manager of the president’s winning 2016 campaign. “The past four years have allowed me blessings beyond compare as a part of history on Election Night 2016 and as Senior Counselor to the President,” she wrote. “It’s been heady. It’s been humbling.” Conway was notable for her connection to the pro-life movement and her efforts to fight the opioid addiction epidemic as well as other coalitions. She also served as a fearless defender of the president in corporate media. “The incredible men, women, and children we’ve met along the way have reaffirmed my later-in-life experience that public service can be meaningful and consequential,” she wrote. Conway’s position at the White House was burdened by her husband George Conway’s vocal opposition to the president, and the Never Trump Republican faction and Democrats highlighted his opposition to the president as a weapon. The Conways have become gossip fodder for the swamp in Washington, DC. George Conway teamed up with the Never Trump Lincoln Project to actively campaign against the president. Kellyanne Conway acknowledged her political disagreements with her husband and said that he would “make changes” to focus on their family. “We disagree about plenty but we are united on what matters most: the kids,” she wrote. George Conway said on Twitter that he would step back from the Lincoln Project and take a hiatus from Twitter, a venue where he has repeatedly savaged the president. “So I’m withdrawing from Project Lincoln to devote more time to family matters. And I’ll be taking a Twitter hiatus,” he wrote on Twitter. “Needless to say, I continue to support the Lincoln Project and its mission. Passionately.” 

  Published Date: 2020-08-24 

 Sunday on New York WABC 770 AM radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich slammed 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for his DNC speech accepting the party’s nomination. Gingrich admitted to host John Catsimatidis that Biden gave “the best speech of his career,” but he criticized the “heavy” tone of the speech. According to Gingrich, it was a “big mistake” to make the theme of his remarks “light versus darkness” with the Democrats being the light. “[O]verall, it was pretty flat,” Gingrich said of the convention. “And then you got to Kamala’s speech, and I thought it was a little clunky and not delivered very well. She reminded me a lot of a sort of a high school graduating president who wasn’t quite sure about talking to an audience. And then Biden gave what I thought was probably the best speech of his career. I’m pretty sure it was written by people who wrote for Clinton and Obama because it had the rhythm and the lyrics that those two guys get. And he delivered it well. To be fair, I thought he did a fine job. But it was a bit heavy.” “Picking the theme of the light versus the darkness was a big mistake,” he continued. “You see it right there in New York. When you have Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue totally trashed, that’s the darkness. Now, when you have the mayor cutting the police budget by $1 billion, that’s the darkness. When you have people tearing down statues, that’s the darkness. And then ironically, in the end, it’s going to turn out that Harris and Biden are on the side of the darkness. Having the best African-American employment in history, having the best Latino employment in history, those are the things Trump achieved. That’s the light. Or being in favor of the police, and standing firmly with those who are trying to protect our lives. That’s the light. They are strategically in an almost impossible situation. And I think that will become more and more obvious over the next two or three weeks. And then sometime in September, they will start getting desperate.” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent