Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) joins us to talk about his time in Congress and why he should run for President in 2020. Plus, the latest on the Pelosi trip to Taiwan and the possibility of a "Convention of States."
00:01:20.000officials and Taiwanese officials confirming Nancy Pelosi at least is expected to be visiting Taiwan.
00:01:24.000China has been posturing rather intensely, putting out a video showing their military capabilities.
00:01:30.000And we even had a Chinese state propagandist saying outright they would shoot down or could shoot down Pelosi's plane, particularly if she had a fighter jet escort.
00:01:39.000So we'll see how much of that is bluster.
00:01:41.000Many people are wondering why she's even doing this.
00:01:47.000We've got a couple other stories, too, that are rather interesting, of course.
00:01:50.000We've got just chaos as it pertains to the economy, and I'm sure that'll come up.
00:01:54.000But we've got a discussion about the Convention of States.
00:01:56.000A new article has come out showing conservatives are 15 states away from calling a Convention of States So I know when you say, where's the Civil War, Tim?
00:02:06.000I know the big news is Pelosi, but the convention of states thing is here.
00:02:10.000You know, maybe they'll lose their minds over that.
00:02:11.000And then at the same time, I think what's also equally interesting as well, the corporate press is freaking out that conservatives might actually get a convention of states.
00:02:19.000The Democrats are actually rather close to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact coming into play, which would effectively create a popular vote for the presidency.
00:02:28.000So, uh, Should be interesting nonetheless.
00:02:30.000Before we get started, my friends, head over to TimCast.com.
00:02:34.000Become a member if you'd like to support our work, and you'll get access to the exclusive members-only show tonight at 11 p.m.
00:03:11.000The most important thing in my life is I'm a father of seven kids, and I have one grandchild and two on the way, which is really exciting for me.
00:03:20.000I am a former United States Senator, served the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 12 years, four years in the House before that, and Ran for president twice.
00:03:30.000I always say you should run for president.
00:03:41.000Anybody that's ever run for president, it's a tremendous experience of learning this country and understanding how the political process works. And for me, as somebody
00:03:51.000who came out of it, who went in there and basically had no money and was not given any chance and
00:03:55.000ended up winning 11 states and almost winning the nomination, it should, if you put your best
00:04:02.000into it, should renew your faith in American politics. But even as far as you got, not everybody could
00:04:08.000get anywhere near that. You don't know.
00:04:11.000I mean, look, I mean, you got a guy who's the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, almost became, you know, and now is the number one person for president.
00:04:19.000Look, you have no idea how America, no one would have predicted Donald Trump doing what he did.
00:06:57.000Pelosi Taiwan trip overrides Chinese military threats.
00:07:01.000Military and diplomatic efforts limit Beijing to angry bluster.
00:07:05.000I mean, simply put, we only need the first opening paragraph here.
00:07:07.000House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will visit Taiwan on Tuesday, decisively ending weeks of wrangling between the United States and China about whether she should make the trip.
00:07:15.000Pelosi's controversial stop in Taipei, which would make her the highest-ranking U.S.
00:07:19.000official to visit the self-governing island in decades, indicates the Pentagon has downgraded its assessment of a potential credible Chinese military threat to the Speaker's safety.
00:07:28.000Beijing has strongly protested Pelosi's Taiwan visit and issued lurid warnings of a stern Chinese response.
00:07:35.000A visit to Taiwan by her would constitute a gross interference in China's internal affairs and lead to a very serious situation and grave consequences, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Monday.
00:07:57.000Is the threat really, is there really a threat?
00:08:01.000Or is the World War III stuff just people posting it because it gets clicks?
00:08:05.000Well, once she announced she was going, she had to go.
00:08:07.000Because when China reacted the way they did, the speaker, the third-ranking person in our government, the speaker in the United States, can't be bullied to going to an allied country because of China.
00:08:19.000China is the big threat to our country.
00:08:23.000It will be for For my lifetime and probably a lifetime of everybody listening to this podcast.
00:09:31.000I think there's a problem we have in our government in general that people just serve literally until they pass away, and it's never the way it was intended to be.
00:09:39.000I think this is one of the fundamental problems in our country.
00:09:41.000I'm worried about military conflict, especially with China.
00:09:44.000And I wonder why it is, because, you know, Rick, you mentioned China's the big threat, I think.
00:10:01.000I mean, Trump and Russia and the Russian collusion.
00:10:04.000Well, everyone was screaming Russia because of Russian collusion, but they weren't concerned about Russia as a great threat to the country.
00:10:13.000And candidly, we made China the great threat.
00:10:15.000We had a policy, which, by the way, I was supportive of and thought at the time it was a viable policy, which was to try to engage China, Trying to bring China into the 21st century and build up capitalism within China and markets and that that would move China toward a more peaceful and free world.
00:10:37.000All we've done is armed them with many more resources than they would have ever had if they stuck in there.
00:10:44.000old pre-market days and made them a real threat.
00:11:17.000Maybe with a different leader in China, maybe with different, I don't know, but it didn't work.
00:11:21.000You know, I think we just have to recognize it didn't work.
00:11:24.000There's a long term misunderstanding of Americans of culture internationally, I think we're very ethnocentric, with a Western cultural view, the idea that you are going to take a country with a 3000 year history, and change their view of themselves in the world, you know, they call themselves the one sun, there's only one sun in the galaxy.
00:11:46.000And so I think it's just, and I think we do this, I'm not pointing at you in particular, but I think we do this as a nation that we look at other countries and we think, oh, they have the same aspirations as we do.
00:11:56.000You know, they want to be part of the world community.
00:12:24.000And so we were feeling our oats that, in fact, we can affect the course of geopolitics.
00:12:32.000If you remember, books were written, the end of history, right?
00:12:35.000Democracy and capitalism, that was going to be it.
00:12:38.000And that was humorous, but If you look at how things had gone, thanks to Reagan and others who stood up against the Soviets and did infiltrate them with a lot of information about free speech and capitalism, you can make the argument it sort of worked.
00:12:53.000Now, what's happened since then has been a cluster, but it was not an irrational thing to contemplate at the time.
00:13:02.000I think you had a lot of special interests in the United States that thought, you know, we could democratize China, we could, you know, bring capitalism there.
00:13:08.000Instead, what's ended up happening is the weird authoritarian, communist, woke stuff has been seeping into our side of things.
00:13:14.000Our movies are being edited to placate China, not the other way around.
00:13:18.000Yeah, and I think, look, there's a military power, raw military power, what they do in South China Sea.
00:13:24.000The economic power and their understanding of economic leverage has been extraordinary.
00:13:29.000The amount of Chinese money that's flowed into this country, it's not that hard to buy most people.
00:13:35.000I hate to say that, but when you go to somebody and it's, here's a few million dollars, and people never been able to imagine that kind of money, and all you have to do is be nice about China, censor some stuff about China, people do it.
00:13:47.000Do you know the stories about how the Chinese would manipulate POWs?
00:13:52.000What they would do is, they would say something like, if you want to eat today, you need to tell us one thing that you think is wrong with America.
00:13:59.000Or something to that effect, like whatever country they were from.
00:14:01.000And they would say something like, we've got a homelessness problem.
00:14:23.000That citizens of China or people who work in propaganda get paid 50 cents every time they post something pro-China or disparaging about its enemies.
00:14:31.000So you go on social media and what happens?
00:14:33.000You go on Twitter, you go on YouTube, for instance.
00:14:35.000And you say bad things, they flag you, they mass flag you, they report you.
00:14:39.000You go on Twitter, all of a sudden you're being inundated, ratioed with people being like, you're wrong and you don't understand.
00:14:44.000They have these people attempting to manipulate public opinion.
00:14:48.000I think we had a lot of politicians who really, really underestimated the future of what warfare was going to be like.
00:14:54.000Yeah, you took the words out of my mouth.
00:15:05.000In fact, the problem is we're not at war with China.
00:15:07.000We're not treating China the way they're treating us.
00:15:11.000The espionage that goes on here, the stealing of technology, I mean, it's just it is incredible how much of American-created ingenuity has been expropriated to China, and yet we allow thousands, maybe millions, I don't know, of Chinese to come here, to go and get educated here in our countries, and bring all that technology back.
00:15:39.000We have to sort of take a step back and say, Why are we letting people come into this country who are here to steal technology, to be educated, to come turn around and then use it against us?
00:15:50.000So again, we aren't on a war footing when it comes to China.
00:15:54.000We would never during, pick another period of history when someone was attacking us, we would never allow them to come and To have positions of power and authority and education and use it to hurt us, and we do with China.
00:16:09.000And I think, again, you hit the point.
00:16:12.000I mean, the fact is these universities.
00:16:15.000need these students and want these students because they pay cash.
00:16:18.000It's also true of private independent boarding schools.
00:16:21.000If you look at the ratio of international students, when a school is about to go under, they start really opening the doors to international specifically, usually China and Korea, because their families have the money to pay tuition.
00:16:33.000They don't have to offer scholarships.
00:16:35.000I feel like in my lifetime, we've always had sort of been on our back foot with China.
00:16:41.000It's definitely the economic Chokehold that they have on us.
00:16:44.000I mean, when the White House announced they were going to boycott the Olympics this year, it was like, well, we're going to diplomatically boycott.
00:16:51.000What's going on with the Uyghurs is really bad.
00:17:33.000That's why I think a convention of states, we've already got people who are chatting saying like they think it's a bad idea for a variety of reasons, which we'll definitely get into in a bit.
00:17:41.000But what I want to say is, when you take a look at what's going on with China, what do they have?
00:17:45.000They have a strong authoritarian structure, a monoculture.
00:17:50.000That is, the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party.
00:17:53.000People like to often point out, like, we're not talking about the Chinese people, we're talking about their government.
00:17:56.000And I'm like, yeah, look, I think colloquially it's understood.
00:18:00.000We're talking about their government, the stranglehold the government has, the suppression of information they have.
00:18:07.000We don't have that in the United States.
00:18:10.000Big tech censorship, the corporate propaganda press will run lies.
00:18:14.000But this show exists, so we're clearly better than China, but that's also, as much as it is a strength, it's something they exploit.
00:18:23.000They know there are people in this country that they can pay who will say whatever needs to be said because we don't have a cohesive shared culture anymore.
00:18:31.000It used to be, we were talking about this last week with the fall of empires, I think Zuby was bringing this up.
00:18:36.000That when you no longer have the idea of, like, God and country.
00:18:40.000I don't mean that literally, God and country.
00:18:41.000I mean, like, this idea of, like, this is our country, this is what we believe, this is what we share, this is our experience.
00:18:46.000When you don't have that anymore, your country can be gutted, ripped apart, and that precipitates the collapse.
00:18:52.000So now I see what's happening with China.
00:18:54.000They're absolutely exploiting our political divisions.
00:18:56.000How much longer can we last when you have the Thousand Talents program?
00:19:00.000China goes in and they pay professors to give up our research.
00:19:04.000Or you've got stories about Chinese nationals ferrying viruses and vials, getting caught and arrested.
00:19:38.000She was raised in her family to hate America.
00:19:41.000She was raised to believe that this is a vile, terrible place, that Americans are not to be trusted, and that eventually China would prevail.
00:19:50.000And China specifically meaning the CCP.
00:19:52.000That's on a mainstream college campus.
00:21:12.000She needs to roll some kind of political hand grenade in the room to try to distract.
00:21:17.000I have taken the approach throughout my time in politics.
00:21:20.000When someone does something that I think is good for the country, Even though they may be doing it for the wrong reason, I commend them for doing it.
00:21:27.000And so I'm not going to say anything negative about Nancy Pelosi going there, because I think it's the right thing to do.
00:21:33.000The fact that the Biden administration did not want her to go, and it was very clear they didn't want her to go, because they were afraid of China's reaction.
00:21:40.000And she stood up to them and obviously said she was going.
00:21:44.000Again, there may be politics behind it.
00:21:47.000Everybody does everything for a reason.
00:21:48.000What's your theory on why she did that?
00:22:30.000Again, I may be giving her more credit than she deserves, but I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt because she's doing the right thing.
00:22:37.000I respect her going to Taiwan, but I question it, obviously.
00:22:41.000And it's like, I really don't like her as a person, everything she represents, the elitism of politics.
00:22:53.000I think she and her cohorts created untold problems in the United States during the Trump years with the obsession over Russia and the lies they espoused.
00:23:02.000And I think it's it's all that's true.
00:23:13.000But and so this is a real head scratcher for me.
00:23:17.000But Yeah, you know, look, thinking about the current state of the culture war, and you know, I'm thinking about, we've got the, you know, the first time into the show, we're like, World War Three, China, what's happening?
00:23:51.000If so many people come up to me who have been a conservative for 20 minutes And they say, oh, this guy's a rhino.
00:23:58.000Yeah, this guy's a rhino who, if you Google my name, you see what kind of rhino I am, that I've been ostracized for the last 20 years for standing up for cultural truths and for standing up for free markets.
00:24:11.000And look, I respect everybody can have their opinion on things.
00:24:16.000And one of the things that I realized is you just go do the right thing and don't worry about what other people say about you.
00:24:22.000And so I'm out here right now where I'm Teaming up with another guy is called a rhino on occasion, right?
00:24:28.000Oh, yeah, because among other things among other things for For standing up for the the ultimate in our constitutional freedoms, which is federalism the idea that America will end up Candidly, in a civil war, if we don't begin to respect that people in some areas of the states are going to live their lives differently than people in other areas of the states.
00:24:53.000And by the way, that was the case from the very beginning.
00:24:55.000That's what our founders understood could hold a country together as big and diverse even at that point.
00:25:01.000We were talking about 13 colonies, but they saw the vastness of what could be the United States and they realized, over a country of this size, you're going to have people who are going to behave and want different lifestyles.
00:25:13.000People who are going to live in the mountains are not going to be the same as people who are going to live in the cities.
00:25:17.000And the idea that we're going to have a central government that's powerful, that's going to make everybody have the same ideas and philosophies, and not give local control and freedom to states and
00:25:28.000communities and families to live their lives the way they want, they realized that that was a loser. And
00:25:34.000so federalism was the approach, and that's what we're trying to restore through this
00:26:11.000There's no way to represent everybody.
00:26:12.000And that's exactly what the Founding Fathers understood.
00:26:14.000Look, I think that it's a ridiculous idea that you're going to represent everybody.
00:26:20.000You have to be mentally ill to be able to represent everybody.
00:26:24.000There's such diversity in this country.
00:26:27.000I've always, people have always said, you know, how did you do it?
00:26:29.000How did you, how did you, you know, go to Washington?
00:26:31.000And because I always felt like my duty was to do what, gather as much information as I could, look at the context of which everything was done, and make the best decision.
00:26:41.000And then, Make your case as to why it's right for America, and not worry about the electoral consequence, because you can't just go out and jump from whatever the poll says from one time to another.
00:26:53.000Look, there's truth, I believe in it, I believe there is a truth, and I believe that our founders put together a process in our Constitution that works, and you just follow those two things, the truth and aligning with the Constitution, and you'll be fine.
00:27:08.000Yeah, you know, I look at, we often will talk about here, who's right in the culture war?
00:27:16.000What does left and right even mean, right?
00:27:17.000I grew up liberal and here I am being called right-wing because one simple reason, I know what's going on in the media.
00:27:23.000So a really great example, I know what's going on in politics.
00:27:26.000A really good example is we had a guest on the show who claimed, I said, Joe Biden said, if you want the billion dollars, you got to fire the prosecutor.
00:27:34.000And he looked at me, smirked and said, that never happened.
00:27:37.000And then I pulled up the video and played it for him and he was shocked.
00:27:40.000This is what makes you right-wing these days.
00:27:42.000That if you show a video in the news that people are talking about, they don't know.
00:28:54.000Especially when we're talking about for you, you know, or anyone else who's in office, you're showing up and you're like, okay, that's not true, Nancy.
00:29:02.000The thing you're saying about Trump didn't happen.
00:29:39.000Rush Limbaugh was just getting started back then.
00:29:43.000Everything was whatever the newspaper or the television said and there weren't cable news networks even back then.
00:29:51.000So all you had was the national media and then your local media and if you had a dissenting voice You either had to run a campaign and buy ads, or you had to knock on as many doors as you could.
00:30:05.000So the idea that we are powerless to fight against these lies, you're at a case in point where that simply isn't true.
00:30:14.000The reality is, we have more opportunity to get our point across today than we've ever had.
00:30:20.000Now, they have more opportunities to get there because there's more media generally.
00:30:25.000The bigger problem we have is not that we can't get our message out.
00:30:29.000It's how do you talk to people that don't agree with you?
00:30:36.000Everybody just gets, you know, information that agrees with their point of view and they discount to the point of not believing anything that comes from people that they don't agree with.
00:30:48.000It's true, but it is the rule on the left and the exception on the right.
00:30:52.000There's a decent amount of people on the right who believe fake things and they just look for tribal answers.
00:31:43.000Which actually, the roots of it, even in our modern culture today, come from Marxism.
00:31:47.000I mean, that is the core ideal of Marxism.
00:31:51.000And ultimately, one of the things that Marxists do, and they've always done throughout history, is if you can control what people say, you can control what they think.
00:32:00.000If you can control what they think, you control reality, essentially.
00:32:54.000There's one where I posted on Instagram where everyone's sitting with their hands up and there's someone chanting like, you know, Black Lives Matter is good and everyone just repeats it after the speaker.
00:33:06.000It's like they've... and this is with amplification.
00:33:09.000So we're no longer in the space where we need to lie and claim.
00:33:12.000We're just trying to make people sound louder so you can hear what they had to say.
00:33:15.000Now they have the speakers and they're still doing the same thing because Making you say something over and over again and drives it, drills it into your brain.
00:33:23.000I think we're dealing with a cult and their counter is projection.
00:33:27.000They say the right is projecting on us.
00:33:29.000And then it's like, bro, you, you believe Jesse Smollett.
00:34:07.000And I do think that's the fundamental difference.
00:34:09.000You just nailed it, which is they'll pick the fringe on the right and try to make them mainstream.
00:34:16.000But the fringe on the left are the mainstream politicians, the mainstream media figures, the Hollywood figures.
00:34:22.000They're saying completely insane stuff that if anybody in the right ever said anything equivalent to that, if a Senator Santorum said something equivalent to that, it would be a 24-7 news meltdown.
00:34:32.000Yeah, the difference is that when our French people say French things, we condemn our French people and we walk away from them.
00:34:38.000And when their French people say French things, well actually, their mainstream people say French things.
00:34:43.000I was going to say, I've learned more about Q from NPR than I have from any right-wing person I've ever met in my life.
00:34:49.000I had no idea the details until I heard NPR give me a thorough explanation.
00:34:54.000I learned it from CNN, not NPR, but yeah, same thing.
00:34:56.000Let's talk about the Convention of States.
00:34:58.000So, you know, we've been talking about, first, the potential for international conflict, but that leads us into internal conflict, people believing fake news.
00:35:08.000We've got a problem in the federal government.
00:35:10.000People aren't feeling like they're being represented.
00:35:12.000There's a lot of people who wonder if a Convention of States, what is it, Article 5 Convention of States to amend the Constitution, I think?
00:35:57.000We've had people already saying they're concerned that if you get uniparty establishment types to have the power of a convention of states, it's going to be gutting the Constitution.
00:36:07.000My view on that one, my counter before I throw it to you guys, is the state-level guys aren't the federal-level establishment rhinos.
00:36:14.000People working at the state level are voted in by much smaller amounts of people.
00:36:20.000So when it comes to a convention of states, you've got state reps, state legislators.
00:38:28.000Yeah, well, let me just a little further that if you read anything about the founding, the founders were fixated on checks and balances.
00:38:37.000They wanted to have each branch of government check each other.
00:38:41.000They wanted have the states to be a check.
00:38:44.000They were concerned about the aggregation of power into a central government or particularly because they came from Places where there are kings and emperors.
00:38:54.000They didn't want that power to all be in one place because they knew eventually tyranny would be taken over and the president or leader at the time would do that.
00:39:04.000And so they put in the United States Senate as a check and the biggest check was that the United States Senate was going to be appointed by the state legislatures.
00:39:15.000And people forget that for the first 140 years of the Republic, Washington, D.C.
00:39:25.000Do you know what the largest source of revenue for the federal government was before the 17th Amendment, which changed the way senators were elected?
00:39:35.000The reason we got the income tax is because of the temperance movement.
00:39:40.000Because the temperance movement could never pass in Washington.
00:39:44.000Prohibition couldn't pass in Washington because they couldn't give up the tax on alcohol.
00:39:48.000So the conservatives traded their vote for the income tax in exchange for prohibition.
00:39:54.000So we got the worst of both worlds, in my opinion.
00:39:56.000But anyway, they also passed a constitutional amendment to change the way senators were elected, to instead of having the states checking Washington from doing things to take the power away from them and the people, now it's the people that elected the Senate.
00:40:13.000So they took away the biggest check on power of Washington, D.C.
00:40:17.000And so this is the only other piece of the Constitution left.
00:40:21.000To check power from the states is Article 5 and a convention of states.
00:40:26.000I think it was Ben Sasse who said, maybe like a year ago, that we should repeal the 17th.
00:40:50.000People have lost their connection with their local politics because there's no skin in the game anymore.
00:40:55.000And not only did the 17th gut state power to that regard, it weakened Article 5 as well, because people aren't paying attention to their local races anymore.
00:41:50.000Like, you know, because I'll tell you this, you know what I'd love to see?
00:41:52.000I'd love to see a convention of states happens.
00:41:55.000The states are all predominantly conservative, which means there's a bunch of things I like, probably a lot of things I wouldn't agree with being more moderate, but gun rights, for instance.
00:42:03.000I'd love to just see them be like, hey, you know what we're gonna do?
00:42:06.000We're gonna issue an amendment that says, to reaffirm the second amendment, citizens of this country can keep and bear arms of any type, or accessory, or otherwise, there you go, we've spelled it out, and then just like, stamp.
00:42:33.000The here's the, the, one of the important things, well, there's several important things.
00:42:37.000Number one is that the convention is being called pursuant to a resolution that has to
00:42:42.000be adopted as you see on that map by, by 34 states.
00:42:46.000And the resolution calling the convention is the governing document of the convention.
00:42:53.000And that resolution, and Mark can go through it because he knows it inside out better than I do, but that resolution is a is a resolution that says three types of amendments are eligible.
00:43:04.000All three types of amendments are limiting Amendments that limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government or spending of the federal government.
00:43:15.000So an amendment offered at that convention that compromises, as you say, on the Second Amendment and weakens the Second Amendment would thereby strengthen the federal government and would be out of order at the convention.
00:43:29.000What if they argued that the Constitution as a facet of government is being limited by taking out some of its protections?
00:43:36.000The application, the resolutions themselves specifically say that they're intended to limit the scope, the power, and the jurisdiction of the federal government.
00:43:44.000So if it's not taking power away from the federal government and returning to the people, it would be what's called non-germane in legal terms.
00:43:52.000And I want to address something much more practical than that.
00:43:56.000It's important that people understand.
00:43:57.000I hear that people are afraid of convention.
00:43:59.000Convention is a place to get together, have a debate and make some suggestions.
00:44:03.000Now I can tell you in my entire adult life, I've never had anybody say, Hey, I'd like you to go to a meeting.
00:44:10.000And my response was, Oh my God, that's so terrifying.
00:44:13.000Please don't have a discussion because when it comes out of convention has to be ratified by 38 states.
00:44:18.000And I'd throw this out to your people who are watching the podcast right now that might be worried about this.
00:44:24.000I've said this to literally millions of people in the air.
00:44:26.000My personal email address, mmechler at cosaction.com.
00:44:31.000If you're concerned about this, then just in layman's terms, send me the amendment you're worried about, and on the bottom of that, list the 38 states that'll ratify it.
00:44:39.000And the answer is, I've offered that to millions of people.
00:44:42.000I've not received an email because it's impossible.
00:44:45.000We're talking about the Second Amendment.
00:44:47.000Today, there are actually 24 states in which you can carry your handgun in the Capitol.
00:45:21.000She even said, she held up a glass of water and said, you put a glass of water in my or AOC's district, you put a D on it, it's going to get elected.
00:45:31.000The reality is that we know where America's headed, and it is in a pretty place.
00:45:36.000We are seeing more and more centralization of power.
00:45:38.000We are seeing our freedoms being violated.
00:45:41.000We've seen our culture becoming more and more woke.
00:45:44.000And the reality is, and let's just, even the more, the biggest reality, we're $31 trillion in debt.
00:45:52.000I mean just a few years ago we were like six and all of a sudden we're like 30 trillion dollars and and by the way we're looking at 40 50 at some point this this house of cards falls apart and we're sitting here saying well we'll trust Washington to fix that.
00:46:08.000Does anyone actually believe they will fix it?
00:46:47.000Because it's going to be really hard to get 38 states to ratify anything.
00:46:51.000But the fact that we would actually call a convention of states and have a national discussion.
00:46:58.000I mean, imagine, imagine if next week or next month a convention was being called to by and having all 50 states send delegates to propose amendments to the Constitution.
00:47:12.000It'd be on the front page of every paper for months.
00:47:15.000We would have groups arguing and forming to propose amendments and get behind amendments.
00:47:21.000We'd have actually civics taught in our schools about what the Constitution is, what rights actually are federal rights, what rights are state rights, where are they better situated.
00:47:31.000At a time when we are so divided and so broken, having a national conversation about Who we are and how we'd like to go forward as a country is really needed.
00:47:42.000If you guys could propose, in your minds, the amendments that should be proposed, what do you think?
00:47:48.000Yeah, I mean, I think some of them are obvious that most people talk about.
00:47:51.000One you hear all the time is some form of balanced budget amendment.
00:47:54.000And I would say that's got to be, it's got to have spending caps and taxation caps tied to it.
00:48:20.000And if you look at our resolution, this is really important.
00:48:23.000It does talk about term limits, but it says term limits for members of Congress and federal officials.
00:48:30.000And it's exactly because of what you said, because you don't want to empower the bureaucracy.
00:48:34.000You don't want to empower the staffers.
00:48:36.000If you're going to turn Congress, you better turn federal officials.
00:48:39.000And by the way, now we know of this as the deep state, right?
00:48:42.000That was conspiracy theory stuff a couple of years ago.
00:48:45.000But so you can turn out the deep state when these people are in DC for 30 years, 35 years, they have the power and they have more power than the politicians and they're unaccountable and unelected.
00:49:07.000But I look, there are some fringe people on the Democratic side who are for court packing.
00:49:13.000But the vast majority of Democrats out there across the country realize that if we start this game of the Democrats adding four and then the Republicans adding, it's a zoo.
00:49:25.000And so putting that in the Constitution would be, if that's the only thing that comes out of the convention, and there's no question that will come out of the convention, if that's the only thing that happens, that would actually be a good thing and a stabilizing thing, something we can all sort of agree on.
00:49:42.000By the way, having something that we can all agree on that's a big deal is good for a country every now and then.
00:49:48.000The other thing I think, too, the point you guys made about the 38 states is that these are conservative states that are gearing up towards this.
00:50:57.000Remember, these are state legislators, not congressmen and senators.
00:51:01.000You'd be surprised how many legislators would say, you know what, we don't want the federal government telling us what to do.
00:51:07.000So don't be surprised that there will be more things that could limit the power of the federal government that actually could be adopted, even when you need 38 states to do it.
00:51:15.000Let me give you a real easy one that most people don't talk about.
00:51:18.000It's called a single subject amendment.
00:51:19.000A lot of states have this and people are furious.
00:51:23.000They're 2000 pages that no one has read.
00:51:26.000No one, no one could read them to be realistic.
00:51:29.000And honestly, if you've ever tried what you would find is there's so many references to other statutes and portions of the, you can't, nobody can understand them.
00:51:36.000So a single subject amendment says one thing per bill and the American people, if you ask them, it's 99% of the American people would say, yeah, absolutely.
00:51:58.000Well, every year the Congress is supposed to pass 13 bills to spend the money, and what happens is that takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of time on the floor of the House and Senate, and they don't want to spend all the time talking about those things, so in the end they put it up all into one bill.
00:52:15.000It's called an omnibus bill because they didn't pass all the 13.
00:52:20.000But there's like random weird stuff thrown in these things.
00:52:24.000Look, it is a process by which you have to get 218 votes in the House and 51 votes in the Senate and or, or more in some cases, 60 votes in the Senate.
00:52:42.000I mean, that's the way things get done.
00:52:45.000It's sort of, I don't know if either of you are married, but sometimes you gotta have to, you know, give and take a little bit if you're going to get things done.
00:52:51.000And that's, that's how the process works.
00:52:53.000We like to talk about guns as a really good example of how different people live different lives in different terrains, right?
00:52:58.000So if you live in the mountains, for instance, well, we got bears out here.
00:53:02.000You know, you certainly want to have some kind of protection for yourself.
00:53:04.000I don't know how you deal with an actual bear because you don't need a big giant pinocchio.
00:53:58.000So, you know, that's, that's, that's not the same as a weapon, but that shows you that if you live in a cooler climate with less hot days, you're probably thinking to yourself, who needs this stuff?
00:54:18.000It sounds like that's the problem with compromise, because you're in office and someone says, I want to spend X amount of dollars in this place for this reason.
00:54:27.000You're like, well, that doesn't matter that much to me.
00:54:46.000And you can make the argument that it actually reflects the needs of the different parts of the country because you horse trade for something that I want in Alabama, that you need in New York.
00:54:55.000There's nothing inherently wrong with that.
00:54:57.000What's wrong is that they shouldn't have the jurisdiction to do things that are not within the federal government's purview.
00:55:05.000Yeah, the question is how much power do they have, right?
00:55:08.000If you take the power away, then you limit the amount of horse trading that goes on to the things that are more fundamental to the federal government.
00:55:14.000And honestly, most people then wouldn't care about what goes on in Washington, D.C., which is really how it was always intended to be.
00:55:21.000What you were supposed to care about were your local politics.
00:55:24.000What was the local school board doing?
00:55:25.000What's your city council or township doing?
00:55:27.000Those were the things that were supposed to affect you as a citizen.
00:55:31.000The founders would be stunned that we allow so much stuff to happen in Washington.
00:55:35.000The federal government was supposed to take care of making sure that we were safe from foreign threats, that there was interstate commerce that could flow between the two, and that we had some trade policy to make sure that we were able to trade goods and services back and forth.
00:55:49.000And we've gone way beyond, and the answer is to pull it back.
00:55:54.000I want to talk about the other side of this.
00:55:56.000So we're reading a story from Business Insider.
00:55:59.000It's very critical of this convention of states, where you basically have conservative-leaning states are slowly getting closer and closer to calling an Article 5 convention.
00:56:07.000So just for those who missed the segment.
00:56:09.000But on the other side of this, you have the more liberal-leaning states getting closer and closer to a national popular vote coalition, which would undermine the Electoral College, and in my opinion, literally just be telling the world, like the moment that happens, Hey, we want to do a civil war here, is basically what you're saying if you do this.
00:56:27.000A convention of states is like, well, they'll propose some amendments, maybe they can happen.
00:56:33.000But, I mean, if you need 38 states to ratify anyway, that could happen through the Congress anyway, I'd imagine.
00:56:40.000A convention of states being called opens a conversation.
00:56:43.000Undermining the Electoral College through states agreeing with each other just instantly ends the Republic electoral process for the president.
00:56:53.000It fundamentally changes how we elect a president and makes the flyover states Real flyover states.
00:57:01.000They become ignored because that's not where the votes are.
00:57:07.000The presidential campaigns will be run in California, Texas, Florida, and New York.
00:58:53.000I mean, if you've got half the country moving towards this, half the country moving towards a convention of states, you've got it pulling away in opposite directions.
00:59:11.000I think this country is increasingly divided, increasingly distrustful of the other side.
00:59:16.000Not just distrustful, about right hatred of the other side.
00:59:20.000They believe that they have bad motives and want to hurt them and harm them.
00:59:25.000That is a Headed toward very ugly things.
00:59:31.000And what Mark has been able to do is take a lot of people who maybe feel that way, not maybe, they do feel that way, and channel them into something that the founders provided as the emergency escape clause.
00:59:47.000You know, the problem with national popular vote, from a marketing perspective, you said like the easy thing sells, right?
00:59:54.000Take away your vote to vote for your senator.
01:00:19.000Where I differ with a lot of people is I think it's awesome.
01:00:22.000And the reason I think it's awesome is because this is how our country has always been.
01:00:27.000We have some fantasy that we've been some unified country.
01:00:30.000Like, right before the American Revolution, when the colonies hated each other and called each other blasphemers and were ready to go to war.
01:01:46.000You can say a lot of great things about about about the 50s and 60s, but it didn't take long for us to say, well, you know, look, there's Agitating against injustice.
01:02:49.000And, you know, I love when I get challenged by, you know, I'll be on Facebook because I waste time on Facebook periodically.
01:02:55.000I have multiple monitors and I'm reading the news.
01:02:57.000And I had someone post about critical race theory and saying Republicans, you know, they're crazy and they don't want you to, you know, learn history about racism or whatever.
01:03:06.000And so I quoted, I posted saying, the meme was like, it was a picture of the people getting the milkshakes pouring on them.
01:03:14.000And then I just said something like, you know, you using these people for your political ideology, blah, blah, blah.
01:03:20.000And then someone said, what is critical race theory to me?
01:04:00.000Plessy versus Ferguson was a separate but equal.
01:04:02.000He argued in favor of it, saying the overturning of this and Brown v. Board of Education were mistakes.
01:04:09.000And I'm like, don't come to me trying to use the civil rights movement to justify your ideology when your ideology is rooted in overturning the civil rights movement.
01:04:40.000And that's why it's important for you to speak that's why important for all of us to go out and not be afraid what what's happening in America until recently I give Donald Trump a lot of credit for this because he exposed the national media for the partisans that they were and he did so by just Punching them in the nose and getting them ticked off enough that they dropped any pretense of being fair and wanting to be journalists and they revealed who they really are.
01:05:11.000All of us have seen it and we've, look, I was in politics for, you know, been in politics for 40 years and for 30 of those years Republican politicians would stand up to the media on occasion, but we didn't.
01:05:27.000We didn't call them out for who they were.
01:05:29.000We understood that 97% of the Washington press corps voted for Democrats, but we always tried to The idea was, well, you don't get into an argument with someone who prints, buys ink by the barrel.
01:05:43.000And so that was the credo of the Republican conservative movement, which is, don't fight against the media because they'll crush you.
01:05:51.000And for one who did and got crushed, I was used as an example.
01:05:55.000Look, don't stand up and speak the truth because the left will crush you.
01:06:02.000Now they can't crush us as much anymore because of avenues like this and other avenues.
01:06:07.000And we have an obligation to use these avenues in spite of the limitations that Facebook and Twitter and YouTube put on those to continue to fight that battle and do it smartly.
01:06:17.000Well, you were on CNN for a short while.
01:07:46.000I can complain that they didn't put me on the shows as much as I would have liked to have been.
01:07:51.000But that's that's that's the way it goes.
01:07:53.000Having said that, I got fired, canceled because I made a comment that the United States of America, I was I was giving a speech to a group of young conservatives about the founding of a country.
01:08:07.000And I made the comment that we were blessed in this country to Uh, have founding documents where we really didn't have a country before this country that unlike France, which had multiple governments and Kings and the history here in America, this was a brand new country.
01:08:25.000And I said, the native Americans were, uh, you know, we're here, but there was no country and that they had no, they had no impact on the, on the, uh, on the, uh, on the constitution and the culture.
01:08:39.000It's been going around and it's, uh, You ever see the meme where it's like, what women would do with a time machine, what men would do with a time machine?
01:08:45.000So, there's a bunch of them where it's like, one of my favorites is, it's like, what a woman would do with a time machine, and the young woman says, I'm your granddaughter, and the other young woman says, wow, from the future.
01:08:56.000Then it says what men would do and there's one of my favorite is there's a guy with full tactical gear and he's got guns and there's like a World War I soldier and he says, grandfather come with me we're going to Jekyll Island trust me.
01:09:08.000So there was one I saw where it's uh they're handing guns to Native Americans and they're saying take these because they're coming and they'll destroy you and destroy your lands.
01:09:17.000And then all these, you know, leftists are like, you're like, yeah, hooting, and I just might respond to them.
01:09:21.000My question is, do you know anything about the Native American tribes and what it was like here?
01:09:25.000Because I'm not in any way justifying the history of colonialism, but I think you need to point out if you went to a Native American tribe and handed them, you know, M-16s, they would just go and massacre their warring tribes.
01:09:36.000This idea that all of the Native Americans were like unified and it's like, oh, the evil white settlers are coming to kill us.
01:10:01.000So when you talk about the history of the Americas, you had nomadic tribes, you had some tribal governments.
01:10:08.000We did learn from and adopt some of their principles.
01:10:10.000It's really amazing history, quite in fact.
01:10:12.000And then you look at like the Aztec Empire and the brutal human sacrifices and how they oppressed and enslaved local tribes.
01:10:17.000And it's like, it's not some utopian world.
01:10:20.000But these people believe in this woke psychotic narrative where it's just like whiteness.
01:10:26.000Literally from Europe or whatever they want to call it is bad and wrong and that means anyone else is good.
01:10:31.000Where in human history have there not been warring people trying to control territory?
01:10:37.000Different groups of people who have read the Bible.
01:10:40.000I mean you look at the Hebrews and the Philistines and the Moabites and it's throughout the course of human history there have been wars conquering for land and the idea that that that is somehow should not have happened in this
01:10:59.000country, that somehow that America is, again, it's not, for me, it's a dystopian view of how the
01:11:06.000world and throughout history has worked.
01:11:10.000Well, so you said a moment ago that you were, correct me if I'm wrong, you were saying you
01:11:13.000think Civil War, you were excited for it? No, I'm excited for the division.
01:11:18.000And the reason I'm excited for it is because if you go back to the Constitutional Convention, the men in that convention are screaming and yelling at each other.
01:11:26.000They're accusing each other of all kinds of horrible stuff.
01:11:32.000There are commercial interests that are fighting against each other in convention.
01:11:36.000We look back and we've got some weird fantasy that these old guys sat around had a couple of pints of ale and came up with this beautiful document.
01:11:42.000The document is a result of that distrust, that dislike, that hatred.
01:11:49.000This is where federalism is born because it's a system designed for people who say, look, I don't really like you.
01:12:35.000The founders, the framers, told us, have a federal system where I say, you know what, you can do what you want to do.
01:12:40.000If I don't like it, I'm going to go live in New York.
01:12:42.000I think the challenge is, I don't think, when we talk about the left and the right, the left having the rule and not the exception, the right is the exception, not the rule.
01:12:51.000I don't know if there's an acceptable compromise.
01:12:54.000I mean, these are people who cost I mean, Kamala Harris was funding their bail.
01:13:00.000property damage, rioting and murderous acts in 2020.
01:13:04.000And the politicians supported them outright.
01:13:06.000I mean, Kamala Harris was funding their bail.
01:13:08.00013 Joe Biden staffers, I believe it was 13, contributed to the bail of these individuals
01:13:23.000They still have their tribal culture and bloodlust or whatever you want to call it.
01:13:28.000So I feel like A convention of states is good to address the problems of the federal government, but I feel like it would be a catalyst for a lot of these far-left extremists and their cohorts in government who are going to lose power because of it, and then it just triggers conflict.
01:13:45.000Number one, the most important reason for convention of states is to limit the power of the federal government to force cultural Marxism and economic Marxism on the entire country.
01:13:59.000So if we can stop them from imposing, trying to generally increase the power of the federal government to the point where they can impose that on the rest of the country, which will cause, I believe, if it continues on, there will be conflict.
01:14:17.000There's no question there'll be conflict.
01:14:20.000The alternative is a convention of states to propose amendments that will limit the power of the federal government or even just having the convention.
01:14:29.000Think about having the convention and the states rising up and saying, you know, we're going to check you.
01:14:34.000That in and of itself may limit some of what the federal government attempts to do or the left tries to do because they know now there's a viable option for the states to push back, right?
01:14:46.000And that it happened, nothing horrible happened, maybe a couple of amendments passed, but now that it's happened once, it's a lot easier to have again.
01:14:53.000The idea that We're going to eliminate the left and their grab for power.
01:15:02.000That's not going to happen, but it's going to be isolated in the states of California and others.
01:15:07.000And we'll see the destruction that is wrought in those states as we're seeing it now.
01:15:34.000For one, this story actually was a meme.
01:15:37.000It's a meme because people were saying if Planned Parenthood claims that most of the services they provide are unrelated to abortion, why would they shut down when Roe v. Wade was overturned?
01:15:47.000And maybe there's some like political point they make.
01:15:49.000But the mainstream press came out and said, the corporate press, I shouldn't call it mainstream, said that it's actually not true.
01:15:55.000It was just Planned Parenthood was like moving funds around.
01:15:57.000Well, now we see that a large portion actually did shut down when abortions became illegal.
01:16:03.000So I'm curious in this regard, one, obviously we'll discuss your thoughts on this stuff, but I was also thinking in terms of convention of states, is it considered limiting of the federal government to codify a restriction on abortion or the inverse?
01:16:16.000To codify the restriction on banning abortions, right?
01:16:19.000Because that's what the left has been arguing for.
01:16:21.000I suppose the argument from the left is, The government was restricting its ability to ban this.
01:16:27.000The argument from the right is the government was giving itself the authority over it.
01:16:30.000You see how there's kind of like both sides are arguing it's an overreach.
01:16:34.000Both sides would be arguing that their move is a limitation.
01:16:37.000I'm curious of your thoughts on that or it's let's just say it's a it's a hard segue into the abortion topic but you know.
01:16:44.000Yeah, I mean, I would say, generally speaking, if you were to give the federal government the power to regulate or allow abortion, I mean, that's essentially what Dobbs said.
01:16:54.000It's like, this is not the federal government's business.
01:17:02.000So I think that is the correct constitutional position, and I think Anytime, if under our convention, you said we're going to give the federal government more power to ban abortions, I think you're now expanding federal power.
01:17:15.000I think either way it goes, whether it's pro-life or pro-choice, it would not be eligible under our rubric.
01:17:24.000And to be clear, I want to give my personal bias, I'm completely anti-abortion.
01:17:29.000So here I am, a guy from the right, anti-abortion, and I just don't think that that's in the constitution for the federal government to deal with.
01:17:41.000The problem is, I should say the challenges that you've got a side that's willing to have the Constitution be amended to enforce their ideals.
01:17:57.000This is conservatives compromising on the issue of pro-life versus pro-choice.
01:18:01.000Whereas the left is arguing every state should have to allow it.
01:18:05.000The right saying, let some decide for themselves, so it's split.
01:18:10.000This is a real example of why a Convention of the States, having the discussion of Convention of the States is important to America because I think as what I'm seeing polls go on and people realize that the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs didn't ban abortion as the left said it did and that this is a decision that the people at the local level and state level can make More and more people, even folks who are for abortion being legal, are saying, well, OK, I'm comfortable with that.
01:18:46.000I'm comfortable with me having to say and what these decisions are.
01:18:50.000And that's really the argument we're making with Convention of the States is, look, let's just let's not just abortion.
01:18:55.000But a whole host of other issues that are really local issues.
01:19:42.000I think, you know, to keep in line with this, one of the things we talk about every so often is that, to put it rather, I guess, crudely, the left is removing themselves from the future of America through the sterilization of their children, through abortion.
01:19:58.000And so when you look at education, it's the one venue they have.
01:21:13.000Because they knew that if you give the the uh the rights of of of workers in a in a government organization the right to to organize and you gave the power to the governor to people in the government to to to enhance to reap benefits on them then the teachers are going to or the or the federal employees are going to
01:21:36.000Shower money on these folks who make their decision and you're going to have corruption and you're going to have control by the union of the government.
01:21:44.000Exactly what's happened in the schools, exactly where we are, and so it is absolutely essential for us to fight this battle.
01:21:55.000There was an Education Weekly poll that came out just after the 2016 election that found that half of teachers had voted for Hillary Clinton, but something like 29-30% had voted for Donald Trump.
01:22:06.000I mean, the occupation is completely partisan.
01:22:12.000And in part, I would argue that the homeschool movement has such legs, especially after the COVID pandemic.
01:22:18.000You know, if you're interested in education, especially in your own children's education, in your conservative, you're probably willing to try homeschooling.
01:22:24.000Whereas that's not true for especially women who have been told your career is everything.
01:22:30.000If you have a kid, you've got to get back to work as soon as possible.
01:22:32.000Otherwise, you will lose your identity.
01:22:34.000I mean, the system is biased towards the flexible parents who are willing to stay involved in their kids' lives.
01:23:02.000We feel very very blessed and I would just challenge anybody Anybody who decided not to do that and and went to the workplace Show me your portfolio of what you accomplished in the last 30 years versus what my wife accomplished in the last 30 years And I would be you'd be hard-pressed to outdo what she did This is the craziest thing is that particularly on the left, they don't understand the value of an investment in creating a human life.
01:23:29.000And it's a really sad prospect of what their lives are going to be like when they're 70 or 80 years old.
01:23:38.000I gave a speech in Hungary at CPAC Hungary a few weeks ago.
01:23:41.000My first thing I said was, can any of you tell me the name of your great great grandparents?
01:23:47.000Can you tell me the name of your great-great-grandparents?
01:24:01.000So the reality is, in a hundred years or less, no one's going to know your name.
01:24:05.000You will be gone, and the only thing you will create in your life that lasts forever and goes on is creating a human soul.
01:24:16.000And those children then creating other human souls.
01:24:19.000That's your legacy, and so many people just have very misplaced priorities.
01:24:25.000There's this photo I saw, I can't remember exactly how they did it, but it was like a single grandmother, and then her kids, her grandkids, and her great grandkids, and each of her, she had like five kids, who each had like five kids, who each had like five kids, and it's just insane.
01:25:04.000They want to convince men and women not to educate their children
01:25:08.000not to fight for the souls of their children to give them to
01:25:11.000them and they will they will they will rightly educate your What you gotta say to them is, hey, if you have a kid, they could become a child star, and then you're rich!
01:25:22.000Or they can have a lot of followers on Instagram, and that will make you feel immortal forever, because as you know, when you retire and you need assistance, your Instagram followers will come take care of you.
01:25:33.000That's what they're known for, I think.
01:25:56.000And then they'll probably get $50,000 per read because of inflation, of course.
01:26:01.000And then they'll use that to pay— That'll buy them Mucilex.
01:26:04.000Yeah, I would just say take a step back and recognize that this generation, last few generations who've been sold this bill of goods are the most unhappy, depressed generation, most medicated generation in the history of the country.
01:26:20.000And there is a reason for that because what you have been sold is a lie.
01:26:24.000And you just need to get back to the truth and understand what really makes you happy.
01:26:29.000I mean, I really do hold social media accountable for a lot of this.
01:26:32.000I think it gives you a false sense of community.
01:26:35.000It's not that it can't be a great tool, and it's not that it can't be very powerful.
01:26:38.000But, you know, Robert Putnam, who wrote Bowling Alone, talks about this.
01:26:42.000It's just a complete degradation of community.
01:26:44.000If at the end of the day you don't know your neighbors, you are not going to be able to call your many, many Facebook followers.
01:26:51.000to help you if you have a crisis with your kids in the middle of the night or if you fall and you need help.
01:26:54.000You need to know the people that you live near.
01:26:57.000I mean that's the only way to truly feel fulfilled in life.
01:26:59.000It's a scary prospect of what the future is going to look like for a lot of people on the left because they're going to vote for government to replace family.
01:27:08.000But imagine what it's going to be like when these millennials are all older.
01:27:11.000They're going to be out in a massive voting block saying the government should provide for us a young person to change our diapers or something like that.
01:27:19.000Well, I think they're already saying that.
01:27:21.000And when I travel around the country and I talk to young people and they look at people our age, they're like, hey, thanks a lot for the debt.
01:28:25.000My point was that you've got corrupt elites in government who are deficit spending and selling you a false bill of goods and then to blame the regular working class American person is absurd.
01:28:38.000The problem is the elitism that has been selling us out.
01:28:42.000Before the boomers, there were other people in government.
01:28:44.000It wasn't the boomers who started the Federal Reserve.
01:28:46.000Okay, I'm going to fight back on this because Those people get elected because they've convinced the American public that government can solve their problems and they believe it.
01:29:41.000So you can blame Washington and I do, but that's why a grassroots movement like this, that awakens America and has a discussion about what the consequences of what we're doing is such an important thing at this time.
01:29:56.000I wonder if it's just, just a natural ebb and flow, right?
01:30:00.000You know, strong men make good times, good times make weak men.
01:30:29.000I mean, people are made, I mean, everybody wants to avoid suffering, but suffering is part of life.
01:30:35.000It's whether you want to suffer for something that's great and worthy and last, or something that makes you feel good for the short period of time.
01:30:41.000I was saying this earlier today that, you know, people often say, like, maybe we're in hell.
01:30:45.000You've heard that, I imagine, from some people.
01:30:50.000And I was like, maybe we're actually in heaven.
01:30:52.000Because, you know, this world suits us so well, you know, it could just be that we've developed for the world around us or that we were made for the world.
01:31:00.000But the way I see it is, There is no happiness without sadness.
01:31:17.000I've gone through some really dark days, but I've always just chosen to be like, this is something that I'll remember, and I can always say I've experienced.
01:31:23.000I've had some really bad moments, like standing out in a thunderstorm, shoes getting soaking wet, car broke down, and I'm laughing.
01:31:32.000Heck of a story, man. You know, it's something in life you get to say you've done, I suppose,
01:31:36.000and you rack all these things up and it just feels... You know, whenever I would find myself
01:31:41.000in these really crazy moments, obviously not having my life threatened, like those obviously
01:31:46.000are truly horrifying, but I'm saying in like all the frustrations of a car dying in the middle of
01:31:52.000the road, having to get out in the rain. I'm...
01:31:54.000I'm like those are things that are supposed to be bad I actually think those are the spice of life, you know Like you put you put habanero peppers in your food it burns, but you like doing it That's where character comes from.
01:32:05.000Yeah, I was gonna say there are Enthusiastic enthusiasts of stoic philosophy who say like you should take a day and fast and just so you know that you can get through it You can be without food You can suffer and recover and it's supposed to be a reminder that you are always able to overcome challenges You have to not be afraid to sort of tackle them It'll work best though if government handles it all for you, right?
01:32:24.000Well, I would never do anything without the government's consent, as you know.
01:32:28.000Well, and so there's also there's the the philosophy of the left is that man is perfectible, that you can make it through life with no suffering, and that's government's responsibility.
01:32:39.000I mean the reality is you've just described some of the best things that we experience in life come from our suffering.
01:32:44.000We become, if we make it through, we can become better people, we become stronger people, we become more empathetic people because we've experienced difficult times that we see other people experiencing.
01:32:54.000Frankly, to be blunt, this is just how God designed us, in my opinion.
01:32:57.000You know, for my career, getting started, I chose to go to places where my life was at risk.
01:33:02.000You know, like going to the Ferguson riots, going to Baltimore, going to Ukraine, going to Venezuela.
01:33:36.000The human desire is baked in for a quest to go out and chase something and do something good and great.
01:33:44.000And I think we repress that at our own risk, honestly.
01:33:48.000And I was one of the things I think you were saying in a quote earlier about one with men with no chest, right?
01:33:53.000If we have a society that that builds weaklings, that builds in weak character, that we end up with what we have right now is really where we're at.
01:34:06.000You know, and I want to tie this back to convention of states, which is, and you're going to have people, I'm sure there are people who are texting.
01:34:38.000He's saying we can't go to war with, he's like, if you're asking me if we should have, you know, if we should be, no taxation without representation, of course.
01:34:45.000If you're asking me if we should be an independent nation, of course.
01:34:48.000But if you're asking me to declare war and to go to war with England, then I would say no.
01:35:34.000It wasn't as bad as these these memes make it out to be like all of these people like no no a decent amount of them suffered and lost they risked everything and that's the reality of fighting for something good.
01:35:44.000That was the elites of society these were every founder was a was a person who was accomplished who was wealthy who had.
01:35:52.000Uh, was actually doing well under British reign and yet they stood for principle.
01:35:58.000And I just, you know, ask all of those who are out there saying, Oh, well, we can't do this because even though it's what the founders intended, and even though, you know, we could, uh, we could try to do something positive.
01:36:10.000I, you know, we're, I don't want to risk that.
01:36:12.000And, uh, the, the reality is that The risk is much greater to allow Washington to continue to head on this inexorable course to control the future of our nation than to fight that battle.
01:36:28.000And yeah, it might be hard and you might not win, but it's worth the fight.
01:36:32.000Well, I want to add, and I think it's important for people to look around with open eyes and understand where they stand.
01:36:38.000And one of the things we were talking about earlier is truth, right?
01:36:41.000And reality and just an acceptance of reality.
01:36:43.000So if you're out there and you're thinking well this is way too risky and there could be a runaway convention, that's the only argument we hear against it by the way, then you should know who you're standing with.
01:36:52.000And who you're standing with literally is George Soros, Common Cause, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, La Raza, MoveOn.org, Daily Cause, Hillary Clinton.
01:37:01.000All these people actually, all these groups other than Hillary Clinton signed a press release saying the Convention of States is horrible.
01:37:06.000Over 250 groups have signed this press release.
01:37:12.000It's the baby-killing Marxist communist America haters all on one side saying this is bad.
01:37:16.000You quoted the Business Insider article.
01:37:19.000This is the left rising up against us.
01:37:21.000And then you've got a few folks on the right that have bought into this and I would ask people like like if I woke up in the morning and somebody told me hey, you're on the side of Lavraza and Planned Parenthood, etc.
01:37:34.000I must be on the wrong side on this one.
01:37:36.000So if you've been sold this bill of goods, you need to step back and look in the mirror and see all these people standing next to you and ask yourself, well, is that really the side that I'm on?
01:37:46.000If you haven't already, would you kindly smash that like button, subscribe to this channel, share the show with your friends, and head over to TimCast.com.
01:38:38.000I mean, that's first off just inaccurate that I supported gun control because I didn't.
01:38:43.000Secondly, I stood for a constitutional amendment to put marriage in the Constitution as a union between a man and a woman.
01:38:55.000That was an effort I tried back in 2004, but I never tried to outlaw sodomy or anything else.
01:39:03.000In fact, I made it very, very clear that just because something that I consider to be immoral doesn't mean that it should be illegal or the government's role to regulate that.
01:39:14.000So Siri Designs asks a question, as if it was present tense, but you're not in office.
01:39:20.000So I would ask you right now, if you were in office, they asked, would you vote to it?
01:39:24.000They asked, will you vote to impeach Biden and advocate for hearings into Fauci and Pfizer?
01:39:29.000My question is, when it comes to Biden and the Ukraine stuff, would you, if you were in office today?
01:39:35.000I guess, look, I'm concerned that we are headed in a time where every president gets impeached if the other party controls the legislature.
01:39:47.000Again, that's not to say that the left won't continue to do it.
01:39:52.000But I'm not a fan of criminalizing politics.
01:39:55.000Joe Biden has been an awful president.
01:39:58.000He's made some horrible decisions, and he should be taken out of office.
01:40:04.000To me, that's the way to get rid of people who are doing bad things.
01:40:07.000But to put the country through a routine impeachment of a president every two or four years, I condemn the left for doing it.
01:40:17.000I would condemn the right for doing it.
01:40:19.000If there is a legitimate reason that there is a threat that this president is not able to do his duty and should be removed, that's to me the principal reason.
01:40:38.000We have elections and, and that's why terms are only two years for Congress, four years for a president.
01:40:43.000And, and if, if, if, uh, if he's done something, uh, again, I think nothing, nothing, nothing he's, nothing he's done to date, I would say are impeachable offenses.
01:40:54.000They are horribly wrong and policies that have hurt America, but that, that, that should not be the standard for impeachment.
01:41:45.000I'm not going to adopt their power at any cost and destroy the democracy so I can control it.
01:41:53.000I think we have to stand up and be better than that, and you can say, well, if you don't play their game, you know, they're going to... No!
01:41:59.000If you play their game, then we lose everything.
01:42:06.000I would say I come down a little bit in between.
01:42:08.000Not necessarily for impeachment, but I think Republicans have to play much harder hardball.
01:42:13.000And I think Republicans have been way too soft.
01:42:16.000And when the power goes back and forth and we're just under constant assault and then the Republicans don't play some hardball in response, it encourages.
01:42:23.000So here's here's a point I would make, which is I agree we should play hardball.
01:42:28.000But for example, you have a president who Donald Trump.
01:42:32.000When Donald Trump was in office, Donald Trump called for the end of the filibuster in the Senate.
01:43:13.000We are a rules-based society and if we say we can ignore the rules and do what we want because we have power, that's what the left wants to do.
01:43:26.000So the question, I suppose, and we'll move on, is just, you know, irrespective of any actual circumstances, if somebody did something that was either impeachable or illegal in a previous term, Joe Biden as vice president, do you think that should carry into an impeachment into the presidency?
01:43:47.000And the American public, by and large, knew everything that he did.
01:43:51.000I mean, I get what you're saying, and I think ultimately the problem is more so down to culture, in that we have a corrupt media apparatus that's not informing people, and that there are people who are willing to vote for this man even if they didn't know.
01:45:37.000As much as the Democrats keep claiming... And remember, at the time of the convention, if this happens, if 34 states pass a resolution to have a convention of states to propose amendments to limit the power of the federal government, that means 34 states will be controlled by Republicans.
01:45:52.000Because if a state flips and is controlled by Democrats, they'll repeal the resolution that passed.
01:45:57.000So you'll never get to 34 unless you have 34 at the time of the convention.
01:46:01.000And so if you're saying that 34 states where Republicans are appointing the delegates to the convention are going to impose, I mean, I just got called an anti-gunner and for what?
01:46:16.000I've never voted against, I've never voted for gun control in my life, yet people are afraid and we can't let fear govern us.
01:46:23.000Well, and I would add it, and to be even more blunt, stop being a tool of the left.
01:46:28.000If you're saying this stuff, you're a tool for the left.
01:46:32.000And you can know better, you can go to Convention of States, all the arguments are there at conventionofstates.com, pro and con, read them, decide for yourself.
01:46:39.000Stop saying the things that the left has put in your head.
01:46:52.000I actually read what it did because I was just told by by some folks 10 years ago when this first came up, this is a terrible idea, runaway convention, don't get anywhere near it.
01:47:32.000I'm like a reformed smoker when it comes to this.
01:47:34.000Do you get pushback for having changed your opinion?
01:47:37.000I get pushed back not because I've changed my opinion.
01:47:39.000I get pushed back because people haven't read the information, don't know the truth, and go by what some Supreme Court justice said 20 years ago.
01:47:52.000We got a super chat here from The Janks.
01:47:54.000He says, Hey Tim, been thinking about becoming a member for a bit.
01:47:56.000Was wondering if you have ever planned to expand out any video game content since you have things like Pop Culture Crisis and Inverted World.
01:48:02.000We are currently in production on a video game.
01:49:57.000And that's why the left and the threat that they pose is such a great threat.
01:50:00.000When Barack Obama said he wants to transform America, that's what he was talking about.
01:50:04.000Changing the values and principles that America was built upon.
01:50:08.000And that's why this fight is so important.
01:50:10.000So he's right that America is not an economic zone, but it is a values and morals zone.
01:50:18.000And that's why, unlike other countries, this battle for the soul of America is in fact real, because we're not an ethnicity.
01:50:27.000We don't have a culture that's built on thousands of years of ethnic history.
01:50:32.000And wouldn't you say that, like, China benefits when we're more divided?
01:50:34.000I think of, like, the opioid crisis in fentanyl, which is illicitly produced in China, trafficked across the southern border, and just further divides American middle class as well as cultural elites.
01:51:21.000Yeah, I think that's important, though, to point out, aside from the geopolitical consequences of what happens in Taiwan, that's where the chips are produced.
01:51:29.000And the Chinese understand that if they get a stranglehold on Taiwan, they control all technology in the world.
01:51:34.000They literally can shut down virtually anything that way.
01:51:38.000Porkins, hold it, says, great to see Rick and Mark on Timcast.
01:52:00.000One of the things that's always driven me crazy about the conservative movement, when we started the Tea Party movement, all kinds of people in the Tea Party movement thought, we're the first conservatives ever to walk the face of the earth.
01:52:10.000And they gave no credence to, no respect to those who came before them.
01:52:15.000The conservative movement's been around for a long time.
01:52:18.000There are a lot of flavors inside of it.
01:52:20.000And I think we need to respect all of it.
01:52:22.000I was part of the Republican Revolution in 1994.
01:52:27.000The first time they got the Congress... The Contract with America!
01:52:30.000I mean, I was part of a group called the Gang of Seven back in 1991 and 92 and we exposed corruption in the House Bank and we threw out the Speaker of the House.
01:52:41.000I mean, I was the original bomb thrower back in the day and, you know, now I'm a rhino, right?
01:52:47.000Because some guys, like I said, some guy's been a conservative for 20 minutes.
01:52:51.000All right, let's, uh, let's get this from Wagner.
01:52:53.000Oliviera says, Tim, since you liked the Freedom Caucus, I discovered recently that Ron DeSantis is one of the founding members of the caucus.
01:53:18.000Well, number one, I endorsed Ron DeSantis when he first ran for Congress.
01:53:21.000I went down to Florida and did a rally for him and he was in a competitive primary and I endorsed him when he ran and I thought he was a strong candidate then and I think he's been as good a governor as I've ever seen in my time in America.
01:53:36.000And he's, to me, he's the right blend of having the right policy prescriptions.
01:53:41.000He is a MAGA nationalist, conservative, populist.
01:53:47.000I wrote a book back in 2014 called Blue Collar Conservative, which Donald Trump would even tell you is what he used as a template for his MAGA movement and did it better than I did when I ran in 12.
01:54:02.000And I think DeSantis believes the same philosophy, has the guts to stand up to the national media.
01:54:11.000He's shown that repeatedly in Florida and is not as abrasive or as radioactive as Donald Trump.
01:54:17.000I want to add a nuance to that, which is, you know, if I were DeSantis or advising him and I don't know him, I don't
01:54:44.000That's not generally the way political cycles work.
01:54:47.000That's a, that's a powerful, you know, it's hot though because no, I mean like you, you're really hoping like to get, yeah, the idea that you're going to get three consecutive terms just generally doesn't happen.
01:54:59.000And I also think, especially because of how Trump is, it's just going to pump up the radioactivity in four years.
01:55:04.000It's going to make it much harder for whoever, whoever follows in his footsteps.
01:55:09.000Yeah, but the reality is Trump had it for him to lose and he lost.
01:55:17.000And you can say, well, they were after him.
01:56:15.000And if there was war with China, how would you respond to it?
01:56:18.000I would support Israel doing what I think Israel will have to do, and Saudi Arabia will have to do, which is take out Iran's nuclear capability at some point.
01:56:25.000Because Iran with a nuclear weapon is an existential threat to the state of Israel.
01:56:30.000It's one of those things where you hear the leaders of a country say, we're going to eliminate you, we're going to make sure that Israel doesn't...
01:56:38.000And then you can't sit there as a small country like Israel and say, well, they didn't really mean it.
01:56:43.000If they have a nuclear weapon that they can drop a bomb and do it, then they'll probably drop a bomb and do it and they'll survive.
01:56:58.000Would this not spiral out into a greater international... Not if the international community, as they should, stands behind them and says that they're going to support their ability to maintain their own existence.
01:57:25.000I mean, I think the biggest problem in the Middle East right now is that we throttle Israel and that we do our best to keep them from doing the things that they need to do for their own security.
01:57:34.000And I would argue for the security of the world.
01:57:59.000It's a Shia Shia Muslim as opposed to Sunni Muslim there.
01:58:02.000There are it's not just Israel that wants that does not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
01:58:07.000It is is the entire most of the Middle East and it will not be I said, I suspect it will not be just Israel that will will in the end stop Iran from getting there.
01:58:18.000What are your views on entering into a conflict with China?
01:58:21.000My attitude is, and I'll tell you this too, my attitude on Ukraine, for instance, is I don't think we should be involved at all.
01:58:26.000I certainly understand the history of the region.
01:58:28.000I went over there and I met a lot of people talking about, you know, Ukraine's desires for entering the EU or potentially NATO.
01:58:44.000So in regard to Ukraine, a little strangely, both sides of my family from Ukraine never felt any particular connection to Ukraine.
01:58:53.000If I got to draw the line though, and first of all, no boots on the ground, absolutely no American blood should be spilled over there.
01:59:00.000If I can use money as a proxy and we can be killing the Russian military on the ground without putting American lives at risk, to some extent I'm in favor of that.
01:59:23.000And part of it for me also is, are we actually there to win?
01:59:27.000Are we actually playing a game where we intend to let the Ukrainians or help the Ukrainians win?
01:59:32.000If we're not there to win, and this is one of my problems with conflict in general, man, when you go into a war, when you're fighting a conflict, the only reason to go into conflict is to win.
02:00:48.000For a lot of people who are probably not... There's probably a lot of longtime, really staunch conservatives who saw Trump and they were like, to battle!
02:00:57.000And there's a lot of people that are probably more in a similar space to me that were like neutral to liberal, moderate.
02:01:02.000And then we see the Democrats just trample over everything, take what they want while claiming it's the Republicans doing it.
02:01:10.000And then what happens with Trump is you have people begging someone to please just stand up and say no.
02:01:41.000So instead of just saying, you're fake news and I hate you.
02:01:45.000And DeSantis, I just saw his press secretary do this two days ago.
02:01:49.000Somebody was complaining from Politico saying DeSantis won't deal with any press that's opposed to him because he's scared of negative media.
02:01:56.000And he said, we're not scared of negative media.
02:02:03.000And I actually think not caring is a better approach than simply doing combat with them.
02:02:08.000The reality is, and this is becoming more and more true every day because of people like you, the New York Times doesn't matter like they used to matter.
02:02:16.000Going back to the question, the problem is you can't pick every fight.
02:02:21.000I mean, if you're out there and that's what that's what Trump wasn't able to do.
02:02:25.000He couldn't back down from everything was a fight.
02:02:29.000And he just every single day was a fight every day.
02:02:32.000I mean, there wasn't a day that went by that he wasn't fighting about something that somebody said and and you need to pick your battles.
02:02:40.000And so going after a demented guy who's not going to run for re-election and spend two years going after a guy in an impeachment of Joe Biden when he's not going to run for re-election, he's going to be gone.
02:02:53.000Why are you wasting your time doing that?
02:03:26.000If the Republicans take power, which I believe they're going to, they need to do everything they can to hamstring the operations of the administrative state.
02:03:57.000Everybody, if you haven't already, would you kindly smash that like button, subscribe to this channel, and share the show with your friends.
02:04:01.000We're going to be heading over to that Members Only Uncensored After Hours show, which will go up about 11.
02:04:06.000You can follow the show at TimCast IRL.
02:04:44.000I mean, we're at war here in our own country for the country.
02:04:48.000And frankly, you're either with the Marxists and the leftists who are destroying the country, and you're willing to accede to that or be a tool for that.
02:04:56.000Or fight with the patriots, the people who are standing.
02:04:58.000And you mentioned the movie, The Patriots.
02:04:59.000Stand up, fight, because they're coming for you.
02:05:26.000There are great patriots out there all over the country.
02:05:29.000There are a lot of people who are like, you know, Tim, why aren't you challenging them on Iraq and all of these things?
02:05:34.000And I'm just like, for one, I think the important thing is if you guys have a difference of opinion on foreign policy, it's like there's only so much I can say when I'm like, I disagree.
02:05:43.000And then you say I disagree or like the Biden thing.
02:05:49.000When it comes to the people we've had on from the left, it's like they'll say something factually incorrect.
02:05:53.000And then I'll be like, that's not true, that's not a real thing.
02:05:56.000Your opinion can be something on policy.
02:05:58.000I argue with Seamus about, you know, pro-life and pro-choice and stuff, because I lean more towards traditional, old-school pro-choice.
02:06:05.000But so we can have an argument about policy positions, but if you have an opinion, I don't agree with, I don't know what else I'm going to say to you guys, right?
02:06:50.000You can follow me on Instagram at hannahclaire.b.
02:06:53.000I just want to say, if anyone has been following the stuff that's going on in Kentucky with the flooding, I really encourage all of you to take action and find ways to donate to those communities, because it's pretty devastating.