Defending Common Sense: Ohio’s Protect All Students Act
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Summary
In this episode, we talk to the co-sponsors of the Protect All Students Act, a bill that would ensure that boys and girls in public and private schools in the state of Ohio shared bathrooms, locker rooms, and overnight accommodations kindergarten through college, and vice versa.
Transcript
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welcome back to the gains for girls podcast uh thank you for tuning in and listening
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as always you can check out outkick.com for all things gains for girls uh you can check out me
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other outkick personalities and contributors like tommy lauren or charlie arnold of course
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clay travis again all of that at outkick.com uh excited for today's episode you may remember
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about a year ago uh governor dewine a republican governor in the state of ohio who vetoed a pretty
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crucial piece of legislation uh in ohio it was the save act hb 68 which would merely ensure men aren't
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entering into women's sports and it would protect adolescents from chemical and surgical castration
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seems pretty straightforward it seems like someone some like something that someone with an r by their
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name could get behind but unfortunately that was not the reality in ohio as governor dewine decided
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to veto this piece of legislation uh the house and the senate was able to override his veto with a
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majority vote uh but nonetheless i believe this was political suicide for him flash forward to to
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today to where we are now uh another bill gets to his desk sb 104 which is the protect all students act
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which would merely ensure that men aren't using girls bathrooms and vice versa amongst all public and
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private schools um kindergarten all the way through college pretty pretty a pretty holistic bill here
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uh it gets to governor dewine's desk and this time he signs it um i believe largely to do with the pushback
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and the backlash that he faced for vetoing hb 68 but a win that we're celebrating nonetheless because kids
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are being protected and parental rights are being upheld all very important things that the majority of
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people can get behind and so for today's episode we are talking to the co-sponsors of the protect
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all students act on the house side uh it is a representative adam bird and representative
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beth lear and you can check out that episode here well thank you both for joining the gains for girls
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podcast uh super duper excited for this conversation and and just grateful for everything that you two have
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been able to advance of course in the state of ohio but really setting the standard uh across the nation
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uh i've had your your colleague uh representative click on uh a while ago actually probably about a year ago
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the same time in talking about house bill 68 uh which which we'll briefly get into in a second but
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before we get into that i would love for you guys to to very briefly describe the protect all students act
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and what it does for students in the state of ohio well the protect all students act was designed
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from a friend of ours a colleague who passed away early in the session chris jordan he had three kids
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in public schools and he wanted to make sure that boys and girls were in separate facilities if a facility
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is designed for more than one student and it's identified by sex then only that sex should use it so
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the bill we put together said that boys and girls cannot share bathrooms locker rooms or overnight
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accommodations kindergarten through college and that is the legislation that the governor signed last
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week riley if i could add to that you know people superintendents from around the state of ohio were
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coming to me and asking me for a bill like this and this was becoming untenable for them and and you may
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remember that this nonsense started back in the late obama administration and and so it was really
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becoming difficult and when the department of education in washington dc was saying you will implement
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this policy or we will take away your federal funding they were leaving schools with no choice but to
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implement what obama administration was saying and and so we know that that some of the people that were
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trump appointees 16 through 20 they weren't all very loyal to trump and so it it didn't go away during
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those years and it was just getting so much worse and and so i think the timing of this bill being passed
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and signed along with the new trump administration is going to be really refreshing for schools across
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ohio uh i could not agree more i think refreshing is a good word because you're right uh i do believe that
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our leaders have wanted to do the right thing for yeah as you said i mean i mean almost a decade now
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um but haven't really been able to because of uh the fear of losing funding which is is of course
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essential to operating uh so i agree i think you gave them the the ability to do what they knew to be
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right all along and so to be very to be clear here clarify it's k through college is that right and it's
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both public and private schools yes all schools and it also includes facilities off school premises
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that they might use so if you have a swim team but you don't have a pool and you use the why
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then the why has to implement these same requirements while the students are there
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riley you bring up the issue of private schools and and that's a really important thing to bring up
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because they came to us multiple times asking us to please let us out of this bill please don't
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include us in this and and we as a private institution some of them christian that wouldn't
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have a problem but by principle they had they wanted out of this bill and we would not let that happen
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because we just thought it was so important uh that we protect all students and and that this is is such
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an instant instrumental principled right for young ladies to be able to go into a restroom changing room
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locker room that we were not going to allow uh private colleges to take that away from them
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it's huge i don't think we've seen the bill as it pertains to this topic in particular
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that is this encompassing really yet so again set the standard for the rest of the nation to follow
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and again feels timely with everything going on uh in the capital right now at a federal level and we're
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seeing congresswoman mace and and what they're dealing with up there and so again this this is is the gold
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star example of of legislation to to follow um i mentioned hb 68 but but this bill was really
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important to me i know of course both of you but it was it was really personal to me in the sense that
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it was again all-encompassing it didn't just protect women's sports but it also dealt with the issue of
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allowing children to to undergo radical and irreversible and permanent surgeries and uh chemical
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castration for that matter uh and it passed the house and the senate and it went to the governor's
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desk uh to which ultimately uh which is something i can't make sense of he decided to to veto which i
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think really hurt him i think that the conversation in america has changed and and you're a part of the
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reason for why it's changed advocates like you have changed the conversation uh it became part of the
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presidential election process it was there was a lot of advertisements around that and and so the the
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ability for certain college sports women's sports teams to stand up and say no we're not doing this
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anymore and it really started to have an impact and and i think that he saw that and and and really
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changed his his his ability to sign this i i think that's that's pretty spot on um
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uh you've had some great support from the lieutenant governor lieutenant governor uh he said i've
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been watching as some of his interviews he's been doing in the articles that have been put out
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uh you've got a phenomenal attorney general who has has pursued litigation against the biden
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administration and the department of education uh surrounding title nine which has has uh to this
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date actually been successful uh but what's some of the pushback that you've had from from
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teachers unions and and maybe civil rights groups i would say a lot of what we've gotten has been um
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some under the radar you know you get the emails you get the phone calls um you get the social media
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trolls who call you every name in the book and attack you and try to get you to respond in kind
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um but a lot of it is also behind the scenes the nasty phone calls and the threats and you know you
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i'm sure you're getting it too and we made a decision a long time ago that we were going to stand up
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for women and kids and also for these kids who are confused about who they are because is it really
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safe for a young girl who's been convinced she might be a boy to go into the boys locker room
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no so we're willing to stand no matter what i'm really proud to have been able to work with
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adam bird former superintendent and no matter what comes our way we're we're gonna take it we're
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gonna keep going i would add to that riley that the pushback you ask about the pushback it hasn't
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come from my constituents it hasn't come from female athletes across the state it hasn't come from
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school superintendents the pushback that i have felt has come from the media and certain members
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of the media have tried to advocate on behalf of the opponents of this bill and i'm not just
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talking about a couple we're talking about print media we're talking about news and and uh and video
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media and and they're the ones who are really taking up this cause and and it makes you doubt
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sometimes the veracity of whether they're journalists or whether they're commentators
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i think that's a very good point and we've seen these numbers on a national scale
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like cnn and msnbc uh and in outlets that that um are are left-wing in that nature uh their numbers
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have been plummeting because i think people are beginning to wake up and realize exactly what you
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just said and i think it's important uh representative lear what you mentioned you guys have taken a stance
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not just in the best interest of of people like myself who who intuitively know that men and women
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are different but you've taken the stance also to protect the best interests of those who who identify
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as transgender i think that that's very pertinent in saying that uh the lies and that they're being fed
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um it's ultimately harmful to to them and their well-being as well so i i really like that point
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uh did you guys on this bill in particular did you have support among elected democrats not publicly
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um regrettably uh we did speak with a few who wished they could vote with us but the democrat party
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votes in lockstep and if you don't go along you're out so that was really unfortunate that
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some people didn't have the courage of their convictions because i know they really wanted to
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of course i think that's nothing to add to that that you know it's it's really sad that that people
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can't vote their conscience when they come here and and so i think people are waking up and and you
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know to to rep leader's point democrats don't want boys in their girls sports democrats don't really
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want boys in their girls locker room but they're afraid to say it because cancel culture is still
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real and and so they don't want to be out there criticizing uh identity politics and and so that's true
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even in rural conservative ohio that the girls on the volleyball team or basketball team they they're it's
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hard to be the one to stand up the way you have and i think you're you've been an inspiration to
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girls around america to be willing to stand up and an unafraid boldly stand on on what is right and
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and i hope that that you continue to inspire a generation of young girls that to stand up for
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what they believe no doubt uh i'm hoping and i believe i really feel actually that that this cancel
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culture is fading i really feel like that over the past month or so especially i mean even over
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the past few weeks it feels pretty exponential um do you think that that was proven i mean what do
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you think of of the senate and presidential poll numbers in ohio because i believe that proved not
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only that people turned out to embrace bernie marino to embrace donald trump uh but more so i believe
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especially in the state of ohio people turned out to to reject absurdity they really did and we had a
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poll too i think it was a baldwin wallace poll that showed the numbers across all spectrums ages political
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parties they don't want this crazy i don't know what you want to call it but the idea that kids can be
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cats or that they can be the opposite gender or that they can be an airplane they don't want it and
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they definitely don't want boys and girls sharing spaces in schools that are meant to be private so
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i think it was really helpful president trump understood that lieutenant governor housted and
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attorney general yost understands that so we've been really blessed to see things start to turn around
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here yeah i might add to that riley that you bring up the election that just happened in ohio and and
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so bernie marino as a u.s senate candidate made this a big part of his campaign and and the man he was
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running a band against the incumbent sherrod brown he would act like your moderate neighbor when he was
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in the state of ohio but he had a radical woke voting record in dc and it finally caught up to him
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and this was part of it and and to his credit bernie marino made this issue a part of his campaign
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and it paid off because ohioans were able to see who sherrod brown really was when he was actually
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voting absolutely and it wasn't just uh in the state of ohio we saw the same tactic used by
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uh bob casey uh for example and dave mccormick and and it was a a the same outcome uh what are some
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other high priority pieces of legislation that are coming up uh that we can be cheering you guys on
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whether it's it's related to to these cultural issues or beyond well we're in lame duck so it's
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hard to say what's going to happen over the next month but we're really hopeful for the new general
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assembly that starts in january we have new leadership um we're planning to move forward on
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some really strong republican ideas i've got education issues planned which i'm sure i'll be
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sharing with representative bird and um property taxes are such a big issue for ohioans we really
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need to be dealing with that so what are some of the things that you're thinking about well you
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mentioned property taxes that is huge in ohio and and so we have got to stop taxing people and in
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order to stop that we're going to have to start spend stop spending so much and that's really
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difficult to do and and so you know we basically we've got property taxes we've got sales tax and
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we've got income tax and we've got to find a way to lower all of those but especially the property tax
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because that's the one that affects grandma and grandpa who are now 75 or 80 years old they're not
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working they're on a fixed income and yet the inflation of the housing market has caused them
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to be unable to afford the home that they're living in yeah my senator andy brenner said we need our own
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ohio doge just like elon and vivek are doing for all of us hey well maybe vivek uh can can come back to
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ohio at some point uh i think that needs to be implemented in all 50 states and across corporate america
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and across academia virtually every realm where this this leadership hierarchy exists especially
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within the democratic establishment uh i believe i'm on the same page as you guys um so grateful for
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for your leadership uh how you've been able to to stand tall uh amidst all of the backlash and the
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pushback and the media smears uh as you as you described um but nonetheless please know
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you're representing of course your constituents the people of ohio but uh you're representing
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the majority of americans and in the process uh setting the standard for other states to follow
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and so could not be more grateful and i hope uh i get to see you both of you again at some point
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in the near future thank you riley thanks for leading the charge and encouraging others to do likewise
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absolutely your boldness is inspirational to our young ladies and uh i hope that you continue that
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and i hope that people like you can continue to inspire in states that aren't as red as ohio and
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we've got to keep this message going in other places and amongst the college crowd and i think that's
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where you are so effective absolutely absolutely well thank you both i cannot agree more with the
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idea of implementing doge in every single state uh elon and vivek can we please get on that i think us
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americans uh on all levels could could certainly benefit from it uh again thank you guys for tuning in
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uh as always you can check us out at outkick.com be sure to like and subscribe and you can share
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these episodes with your friends and we look forward to seeing you again next week