Straight Shooter with Stephen A.

Welcome to the latest addition to Straight Shooter with George Tully, Stephen A. Smith coming at you.

Over the airwaves with Sirius XM, POTUS Radio, Channel 1.24. The caller number, as always, is 8669, 677-887. That's 866-96 Potus. You heard an audience clapping in the background. Now, that's foreign territory for me. In doing this show since September 17th, I've never done the show in front of a live studio audience,

but I have a studio audience in front of me. I'm honored to have everybody here. Thank you all so

much for being a part of today's show. In approximately 20 minutes or so, the senator from the

great state of Texas, the one and only Senator Ted Cruz will be in attendance right here in studio

with yours truly. We've got obviously a lot to talk about. There's a shutdown that came to an end

after 43 days of absolute senselessness on a part of both parties as far as I'm concerned

because the American people suffered, not them, which is a problem that we can get into at a later date, how federal workers weren't being paid, but elected officials were being paid, how folks was having a health care compromise, but these folks still receiving health care. Don't get me started with this stuff, okay? So we're glad that that's over as Thanksgiving approaches, as Christmas approaches,

and we don't have to worry about that. A continual resolution will ultimately be revisited

come January 31st and we'll go on from there. There's also the issue of the Epstein files.

And that's where I'm going to start today because it's necessary. Okay. And I'll be taking questions from the studio

audience. I'll be taking calls before the show is over. There's a lot of stuff to get into,

but due to the fact that I'm not some political aficionado that's spending my life

covering politics, I come from a layman's perspective, but kind of bring it home and exercise common

sense as I tackle a lot of these issues as a conscientious observer, as a voter, etc. There's

certain things that make sense, and then there are certain things that simply do not. So,

President Donald Trump had religiously stated,

it's much ado about nothing.

You understand it had given indications.

He didn't want the Epstein files open.

This is after he had campaigned on opening the files.

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