Time is running short for Capitol Hill Republicans hoping to pass the president s massive tax and spending plan by his self-imposed deadline. Amid rising tensions with Iran, the Justice Department and FBI say they are now shifting personnel to prioritize counterterrorism cases. And it s been reported that the White House has taken off the sanctions on Iran that prevented them from being able to sell oil to the Chinese Communist Party.
00:00:51.540Time is running short for Capitol Hill Republicans hoping to pass the president's massive tax and spending plan by his self-imposed deadline.
00:00:58.540Republicans don't need a single Democratic vote if they can keep their side of the aisle united.
00:01:04.580I have developed a proposal for the Department of Community Safety that would include an 800% increase in funding for hate crime prevention programs.
00:01:13.420Because ultimately, we cannot simply say that anti-Semitism has no home in this city or no place in this country.
00:01:19.300We have to do more than talk about it.
00:01:21.480Amid rising tensions with Iran, the Justice Department and FBI say they are now shifting personnel to prioritize counterterrorism cases.
00:01:29.380After President Trump's return to the White House in January, the Justice Department directed its personnel to focus on immigration and the border.
00:01:36.380But now they are moving back to counterterrorism and potential threats from Iran and its allies.
00:01:41.600This morning, the Iran ceasefire appears to still be holding.
00:01:45.540We're going to talk to them next week with Iran.
00:10:11.680It's been known basically a year in advance.
00:10:13.740And now for a government bureaucrat that was appointed in 2012 under a Democratic majority leader,
00:10:18.060now to all of a sudden be stopping the GOP agenda, the GOP caucus and President Trump himself from getting the exact policy points
00:10:24.940that he wanted in one bill all wrapped up to vote on is ridiculous.
00:10:28.780And we should never be overran by a government bureaucrat that has nothing to do with the GOP caucus.
00:10:34.840I think she's related to, you know, several Democratic operatives.
00:10:38.440She has connections to Democratic operatives.
00:10:40.460She is a Democratic operative herself being a bureaucrat appointed by a Democrat.
00:10:44.380And, you know, all these things need to be countered on, you know, with deportations, with illegal immigrations, with fair trade deals.
00:10:50.040All these things are that are going to be included in this piece of legislation.
00:10:52.900We have to ensure that a government bureaucrat that has nothing to do with the GOP caucus, nothing to do with Republicans or conservatives,
00:10:59.680is not the sole person to block this bill.
00:11:03.000And, you know, Senator Leader John Thune needs to step up and needs to ask her to resign,
00:11:06.960which has already been called on by people like Tommy Tuberville and Ted Budd.
00:11:09.760And more Republican senators need to step up and ensure that she is not the blockade that prevents this legislation from passing.
00:11:15.340I love this. The Senate parliamentarian needs to go. Fire her today.
00:11:22.220Matt, you and I were chatting a little bit during the break, though, but, you know, we're looking at these election results out of New York.
00:11:29.180And we could say all that we want about the impact of mass immigration and the direct line that we could see towards the new, you know, quote unquote, Democrat coalition.
00:11:39.660But what's interesting, though, is that the policies and the rhetoric are totally divorced from the wokeness that you would see in 2020,
00:11:49.280which is why it's funny going out to this Zoran's like 2020 tweets and finding a bunch of stuff that he hasn't talked about.
00:12:26.620Chuck Schumer's probably on deck if AOC challenges him.
00:12:29.300Like, a very straight white guy in the Democratic Party in New York.
00:12:32.720Like, it's not going to end well for you, and it hasn't been ending well for you in quite some time.
00:12:37.600And so here you get this very charismatic, talented politician.
00:12:41.460I think that, you know, this guy doing a walk of all of Manhattan was something that showed youth, showed vigor, but also the social media game.
00:12:50.120If you go and look at this guy's ads, he's actually drawing a leftist audience into policy prescriptions like deregulation to lower cost.
00:13:00.900And there is this infection on the political left right now where everything has to be about Trump.
00:13:07.240You know, what can we do to challenge Trump or defeat Trump or arrest Trump or admire his legacy in something?
00:13:12.700And that just isn't a winning message for people who are worried about their streets being overrun, their physical safety, their economic well-being.
00:13:20.240And so Zoran went out there and said, I can make street food less expensive with deregulation.
00:13:25.340I can, you know, have a generational argument to be made about the future of New York, which has a lot of young voters that participate in municipal elections.
00:13:33.260And so I think this guy is heads on the favorite.
00:13:36.960He will likely go on to what most people who win the Democratic primary in New York go on to, and that is the mayoralship.
00:13:42.760But if there is any opportunity here, it is in like a triple down on the coalition between MAGA and black voters.
00:13:52.620My colleague, your friend, Vish Burra, made the argument on my program last night that Curtis Lewa should drop out of the race in New York.
00:14:00.900And, I mean, let's go ride with the brothers.
00:14:03.380Let's go take New York back, stop the sanctuary policies, and see if that's something new and different and certainly not out of line with President Trump's thinking and his prior defenses of Adams.
00:14:25.940Would Curtis Lewa, right, who's he's probably got 250,000 to 300,000 votes, be willing to run on a fusion ticket so he drops out and then roll with the brothers, go on with Eric Adams, and actually find a way for MAGA to take back New York writ large?
00:15:27.940We're talking about the big, beautiful bill, talking about how important it is for the entire Republican Party to understand the MAGA coalition, so the coalition that got on board with President Trump in 2024.
00:15:43.240Maybe there's a better way of talking about this, because people have to understand that there's MAGA, but there's other elements of it.
00:16:14.700Well, sure, for a political movement to be successful, you have to embrace addition, not subtraction and division.
00:16:23.460And frankly, it came into sharp relief in this discussion we had over the 12-day war, where people like you and I were encouraging foreign policy realism, encouraging a humble reflection on our recent history of regime change wars in the Middle East.
00:16:39.420I think that's true to President Trump's goal and certainly the outcome here.
00:16:43.120But then you had the regime change folks like Mark Levin who are out there saying that anything short of toppling foreign governments was somehow a betrayal of MAGA.
00:16:52.520And there is, like, the core heartbeat of the America First movement, the people who've been with President Trump and worked to see that his vision has come to fruition.
00:17:03.280But then you do have these other components of the coalition.
00:17:06.000And look, there are things in this bill that I think tease out some of the differences.
00:17:13.120Take, for example, the moratorium on AI.
00:17:15.880A lot of the tech bros want to see that moratorium in place because they don't want to live in a world where they've got a server somewhere in Louisiana and are unaware of some state novel restriction or regulation that could impair their global or multi-state activities.
00:17:34.060But then you've got people like Marjorie Taylor Greene who say, look, I am worried that AI could be a job eater in my state if my state legislature wants to ask these questions and approach these policy challenges.
00:17:46.240I want them to have the freedom to do so under our federalist system.
00:17:49.340So even that question is, like, dividing some of the core of America First from some of our new arrivals.
00:17:57.880Well, and by the way, when you mentioned Mark Levin, he attempted to do this at one point.
00:18:06.300So he gets to define what real MAGA is, which, you know, which is funny because this is a guy who didn't support Trump in 2016 or in 2024 in the primary and gave a speech at CPAC saying that he wouldn't support Trump in the general.
00:18:19.760But but it spikes the broader conversation of what is real MAGA.
00:18:25.500And I think that, you know, look, I mean, there's no more credibility that I think this guy can lose and that he hasn't already lost in this debate.
00:18:33.400But when it really the broader question, I think, for all of us is there's a lot of people.
00:18:38.500And, Matt, I'm sure you saw this when you were in town.
00:18:41.000There's a lot of people in D.C. who thinks that being MAGA means doing normal Republican stuff with but just with like a little bit more swagger or something like that.
00:18:55.600No, President Trump led a fundamental realignment of politics on the right.
00:19:00.560We had been told by people like Paul Ryan that we could invade everywhere and invite everyone.
00:19:05.340We were told that the trade deals would it would be OK if they hurt our middle class so long as they built up the middle kingdom.
00:19:13.840And President Trump on immigration, on trade and on foreign policy did not just offer the Republican Party a few corollaries.
00:19:23.220He fundamentally realigned our movement for the better.
00:19:26.480And by the way, if he hadn't done that, we would still be losing.
00:19:29.740Right. If we were still running some version of Mitt Romney, this is not that would not have been sufficiently attractive to enough working class people to deliver victories.
00:19:40.820So for those who want to shake the Bush family tree again and see what falls out, I would ask, like, what about winning is so off putting to you?
00:19:50.660And don't you realize that the country club version of Republicanism that's sold out, that the people here will not survive in a world where information is more democratized and people can educate themselves on the issues.
00:20:03.660And so it is funny when people think that they're the digital hall monitors of what constitutes real MAGA.
00:20:10.780But, you know, the the foreign policy issue is critical also in this respect, Jack.
00:20:16.460If you look at the people who betrayed Trump over the years, it's always the neocons.
00:20:22.960Right. You can almost lay a foreign policy paradigm over the likes of the Jim Mattises, the Rex Tillersons, the John Boltons, the John Kellys.
00:20:33.240They're all the neocons who kind of slipped into the movement.
00:20:36.700And if those folks are looked at with, I think, a good deal more skepticism, Trump probably has a more durable path to the greatest legacy ever.
00:20:48.900Kenny Cody, we've got a couple more minutes, but Kenny, walk us through that that core promise of populist nationalism and how it's totally different from neoconservatism or conservatarianism that was peddled by the likes of Bush, Romney, McCain and Ryan.
00:21:04.080Well, I think that the traditional neocon establishment Republican hates the idea of going out and talking to everyday people, middle class people, about the issues that mean the most to them.
00:21:12.960I've always described in articles and when I talk to people about the Republican movement, it is not about necessarily populism isn't an ideology.
00:21:20.940It's a tool. It's listening to the middle class.
00:21:22.920It's listening to the issues that are the most important to people, such as fair trade deals, such as mass deportations, illegal immigration and an over influx of mass migration into the country.
00:21:32.700And I think that's why we've had such a success.
00:21:35.080These established Republicans do not understand that this is not the Bush-era Republicanism of the past.
00:21:42.880That's not going to win in the future.
00:21:44.480And we have to be able to expand our horizons.
00:21:47.120This old idea of Republicanism that we're going to put the corporations on the forefront, that we're going to put the lobbying and consulting forums and their priorities on the forefront when we pass policies and allowing them to dictate leadership positions, allowing them to decide congressional primaries, senatorial primaries, local primaries, or what have you, are done and over with.
00:22:05.820The modern American voter is the most important vote within the GOP, is the most important vote in the MAGA movement.
00:22:11.500And the MAGA movement has expanded, like you said, to MAHA, like you said, to anti-interventionist foreign policy.
00:22:17.380And if we're able to prioritize that, like we have the last 10 years since Donald Trump came off the escalator in New York City, that's what's going to facilitate wins.
00:23:01.640And it means we're going to be able to deliver more great voices like yours, like Kenny's, and so many others who are fighting for President Trump's bold agenda for the country.
00:23:09.520Well, congrats to you guys and everything.
00:23:11.400Please, of course, give my love to the Herrings, as always.
00:24:22.120The Human Events been pushing the America First agenda.
00:24:25.060It's been just a great trip to Washington.
00:24:26.220I miss my hills of eastern Tennessee, but I'm still enjoying being on.
00:24:31.600Well, Kenny, let me ask you this, because this, you know, obviously this is a huge, you know, a huge news cycle that you find.
00:24:41.040You had this trip, and I know that you had planned it out, you know, far in advance.
00:24:45.280And obviously you didn't know that we'd have this 12-day war and the bill coinciding for exactly when you came.
00:24:50.780But maybe it would, hey, maybe it's in God's time.
00:24:52.740But this view and the fact that you're coming in as someone who is a Gen Z conservative, and I think that we've had Avita Duffy on here recently, and she's saying, look, these issues for Gen Z are not fringe.
00:25:33.060And I think it's something where, call me crazy, but Gen Z, they don't want the, oh, we're going to go to war abroad talk.
00:25:43.060They want more of the, we're going to make life better at home, at the home front kind of level.
00:25:49.480So give me, or give us, audience-wise, an understanding of where Gen Z stands on this question and these very serious questions in terms of their priority matrix when it comes to government.
00:26:01.580I mean, yeah, I think Mamdani, I mean, regardless of what you think about him, I mean, he's a communist, he's a socialist.
00:26:12.620It is not an ideology that pigeonholes anybody into a corner.
00:26:16.140It is an idea that he goes out, the populist goes out, and meets with his people, meets with Gen Z specifically because he is a part or at least closely related to that population and that age demographic.
00:26:28.940You know, he's going out and saying, I want to lower the food costs on, like, Indian food carts.
00:26:34.440Like, I forget what that exact dish that he posted about was, but he was literally talking about buying one food dish that's a street product from $10 to $8.
00:26:43.520He's talking about, you know, taking over grocery stores and making items cheaper for the, you know, the New York City public.
00:26:50.000He's talking about, you know, lowering rent.
00:26:52.120He's talking about things that mean something to people, groceries, food, housing.
00:27:18.680But regardless of betting markets, regardless of, you know, the presumption that a former governor was going to win a mayor's race,
00:27:24.640he dominated that conversation, and he did make it about himself.
00:27:29.040I mean, he was known about two months ago as this radical Islamic populist, and people kind of brushed him off.
00:27:36.860But, I mean, in the last weeks of the campaign, he really concentrated that populist message.
00:27:42.200And, you know, populism doesn't necessarily mean that we need to cave on principles.
00:27:45.660Populism doesn't mean that we can't hold those traditional conservative values, but it does mean that things like MAGA and other political movements can utilize the populist movement into knowing what the middle class and low-propensity voters care about to have that turnout, to turn out Gen Z as they did in that election.
00:28:03.660And it was the difference in New York City, and Gen Z was the difference in President Trump's election in 2024.
00:28:09.880Because of them being things like anti-war, pro-middle class, pro-working class, it's one of the reasons why that coalition was catered to and gotten by Donald Trump in 2024.
00:28:19.260So populism needs to be utilized by conservatives nationally, needs to be used by conservatives globally, and if we're able to keep on facilitating that over the next 10 years, MAGA can really capitalize on Gen Z and the future generations by solely just using those populist mantras.
00:28:35.980And so, Kenny, this is what we're talking about here, and I think this is absolutely central, not just to the MAGA message, but even to the debate on the big, beautiful bill.
00:28:44.320Because they say, oh, we're just getting rid of this policy item, this line item, that line item.
00:28:49.200Now, they haven't touched the no-tax items, which I think are massive, no-tax on tips, no-tax on overtime.
00:28:54.260But it sounds like what you're saying is that Gen Z as a cohort, which, by the way, votes at a very higher clip than we've seen the youth vote in the past.
00:29:04.080The current, I think it's 18 to 29 right now, votes much higher, 60% of them broke from Zoran in this one.
00:29:10.580But you also saw a lot of Gen Z going for Trump, particularly Gen Z males, and I think a lot of this has more to do.
00:29:17.540So certainly there's a backlash to wokeness, but what comes after that?
00:29:20.880Okay, we're anti-woke, but what do we want? We want that right-now money, right?
00:29:24.460Congress is up there dragging its feet, and so they're going to say, I want something that's going to help me right now.
00:29:30.420Right here, right now, not 5,000 miles away, 6,000 miles away, right now, right here, because, look, you know, the Trump stuff, you know, they'll talk about this, but you know what?
00:29:45.340You're talking about things that affect people on a regular basis and a daily basis.
00:29:50.000And, Kenny, you and I could sit here and talk about, you know, Milton Friedman until we're blue in the face and bring up all the great work of Thomas Sowell and so many others about, you know, rent control and poverty and, you know, grocery stores and how all this leads to the situation.
00:30:06.360But we're talking about electoral politics.
00:30:09.280And when it comes to Gen Z specifically, this rhetoric and these policies are extremely popular.
00:30:17.120And I think that's something that I'm just going to say, I think that's something that a lot of Republicans in D.C. haven't quite updated themselves on yet.
00:30:25.120I mean, Congressman Gates said it earlier, do you not want to win?
00:30:28.760And these issues win, these strategies win.
00:30:31.940If we can absolutely make a coalition of populists and nationalists that are proud of their country but want their children taken care of, you know, that's why you saw backlash to the LGBTQ movement.
00:30:41.860They're seeing their children be indoctrinated by these social abnormalities, by nonprofits that are pushing this, by social media stars that are pushing the transgender movement.
00:30:52.240The reason that you're seeing people go away from that is because of populism.
00:30:56.200It has become popular to go against this evil Marxist ideology.
00:31:00.180In the same way it's been popular, for no taxes on tips.
00:31:03.300And, you know, it's not really that complimentary for the Senate to keep that in because it literally got 100-0, one of the first 100-0 votes that I've ever seen in nearly a quarter of a century on one bill.
00:31:14.200They actually passed and approved tax on tips, or no tax on tips, right, because it's a popular populist mantra.
00:31:20.280But they're leaving out the things that they think can be skewed, things like immigration, you know, and things like Matt Gaetz talking about with AI.
00:31:26.940There are a lot of issues that may be 50-50, may be 60-40, but the GOP is responsible for delivering on President Trump's agenda.
00:31:35.760These senators that were up for re-election in 2024 literally went to their states and said, we are going to pass one big, beautiful bill.
00:31:42.560We're not going to pass, you know, three or four bills in a span of three or four years.
00:31:46.420We're going to pass one big, beautiful bill on the issues that you all voted President Trump and me, as a senator, in to vote for and in to put into the agenda.
00:32:05.320That's not what the MAGA movement voted for.
00:32:07.520That's not what even independents voted for.
00:32:09.300They are for a transparent legislative policy that is going to cover the bases that President Trump campaigned on, and these senators and congressmen and even local leaders campaigned on.
00:32:21.940And, again, we shouldn't let a government bureaucrat that's been there since 2012 for 13 years just override elected officials and, most importantly, the man who got the president of the United States in November.
00:32:32.440You know, and I think what you're walking through here is, so you've got, populism is the name of the day.
00:33:05.660You get this sort of infusion of the popular policies.
00:33:10.740But then he goes a step further and says, and we're going to strip all the money from the landlords.
00:33:15.400And we're going to go after all of the people who are successful.
00:33:18.640And we're going to give you all sorts of free stuff like crazy.
00:33:22.140And this shows, I think, Kenny, the danger of not following through on the MAGA populist agenda when it comes to economics because these guys are going to come up now and start offering free stuff all over the place.
00:33:35.460And they do not care what they burn down and how many billionaires and millionaires move out of New York City and take jobs with them because that's what they're all about.
00:33:46.700This type of rhetoric becomes very, very popular when you are in situations where the haves versus the have-nots, the lower class feel like they're being completely unheard and completely unregarded.
00:34:01.800And I think a lot of Gen Z feels that way.
00:34:05.160And, you know, one thing, like the biggest tweet that I've seen on Twitter involving Mamdani is that queer liberation is defunding the police.
00:34:12.500Like a statement that makes absolutely no sense in general, right?
00:34:16.220There's no dictionary definition as to what that actually means.
00:34:44.820It can be a way to start a conversation on one topic and lead into the enclaves of policy and others.
00:34:52.040But, you know, Mamdani did a pretty good job about recruiting those kinds.
00:34:56.320And that's why populism can also be dangerous for the left.
00:34:58.940And if MAGA doesn't use it, it can be dangerous for us, too, because this is now the name of the game.
00:35:03.640We are no longer the country club Republicans of the past.
00:35:06.260We are not country club conservatives or neoconservatives.
00:35:08.540We are now a populist nationalist movement.
00:35:10.920And that's what these current senators that are not pushing the Be Beautiful Bill need to learn from.
00:35:14.080You need to learn that the modern voter of today is not for the country club, small-town fundraisers that you can go and talk to your biggest donors about what you're going to vote for.
00:35:24.680They want to see action now on the issues that they voted Trump and MAGA in to do all wrapped up in one beautiful bill.
00:35:31.080And they need to be able to capitalize on those populist sentiments and make the Republican Party a nationalist populist party like it's been the last 10 years and keep it that way for future generations.
00:36:50.880We're very excited for a debut guest, although we've covered him in the past at various rallies and events.
00:36:59.840But never in this capacity, folks, we've got HUD Secretary Scott Turner now joining us to tell us all about his new policy on millennial housing and some updates.
00:37:11.840Apparently, moving day is coming up for HUD.
00:37:15.000Secretary Turner, thank you so much for joining us here.
00:37:23.760You know, in our country right now, we have a housing affordability issue.
00:37:29.460And at HUD, we've been working very hard to bring down regulations as it pertains to housing.
00:37:35.940You know, a lot of people in our country, in particularly millennials, are asking, and I have one, a 24-year-old son, and say,
00:37:42.660man, how am I going to afford a house in America today?
00:37:47.000And so myself and our team under the president's leadership, we've been taking down burdensome regulations, not only from the federal standpoint,
00:37:55.480but also encouraging localities to take inventory of their regulations.
00:37:59.900What's causing developers and builders not to be able to build affordable workforce housing in our country?
00:38:06.980Right now, we need about 7 million units of housing of all types, multifamily, single-family, manufactured housing, duplex, condo.
00:38:16.320And so we've been working to take down regulations like the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule,
00:38:21.820which would restore flexibility back to the localities.
00:38:25.500And so when millennials and others are asking how we're going to afford, at HUD, we are hard at work to make sure that housing affordability comes down.
00:38:34.580The supply goes up, the cost comes down, and also opportunity zones.
00:38:39.380You know, the initiative that we had in the first Trump administration that was so transformative when it comes to building housing,
00:38:46.200about 1 million people in opportunity zones have been lifted out of poverty.
00:38:51.420Over 300,000 units of housing have been built in opportunity zones with $90 billion of investment.
00:38:57.480And so I'm excited about the continuation and expansion of opportunity zones because this will help us to build more housing,
00:39:06.300more affordable workforce, attainable housing in our country, not only for millennials,
00:39:11.540but for the people of America to accomplish and reach the American dream of home ownership.
00:39:15.980Well, and this is so important, by the way, not just for the president's agenda and what he ran on,
00:39:24.240but also for so many people that are out there because we've seen, Secretary, these numbers when we look at birth rates in the United States,
00:39:33.540when we look at family formation, home ownership, it's so low.
00:39:37.280It's coming in under where it should be for so many Americans.
00:39:41.700And this really cuts across all demographics, right?
00:40:29.780There's much work to be done, but I want to encourage the people of America.
00:40:33.500You know, when you think about HUD, oftentimes you don't think about how we have the FHA program here to help those first-time homebuyers who may not be able to afford to put down the institutional 20% down payment.
00:40:48.000And so HUD is working very hard to not only identify, but to work with first-time homebuyers, to work with our veterans, and to work with those who may have a low to moderate income.
00:40:57.880And so FHA is a tremendous program, and that's a great encouragement for us here at HUD and for our country.
00:41:03.280And we'll continue to work hard to bring down regulations, to bring the supply up, and work with public-private partnerships so that more Americans, no matter their age, can achieve the American dream of home ownership.
00:41:15.160Well, Secretary Turner, there's no question that home ownership and ownership of assets in general is the key to unlocking the pathway to generational wealth.
00:41:27.720And the sooner that anyone is on that pathway, the sooner that they'll be able to get to the American dream.
00:41:34.240And I think this is absolutely something that President Trump campaigned on, and I find it very encouraging that you're making it so central to the agenda.
00:41:41.600And one of the other pieces, and we've only got about a minute here in the show, that the President Trump campaigned on was reduced, draining the swamp.
00:41:49.720And I hear that housing and urban development is actually moving out of D.C. proper.
00:41:59.440HUD will have a new home in Alexandria, Virginia, and this will save the American taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars in the next several years.
00:42:08.520And the first thing we are here, we're stewardship, and so we have to steward well over taxpayer dollars.
00:42:13.960Also, it'll be a healthy place, a safe place for our HUD employees to work.
00:42:19.600The morale and the culture will change definitely here at HUD.
00:42:23.720And so we're very excited as we represent, you know, housing in our country as under the President's leadership to be great stewards over taxpayer dollars.
00:42:32.380Because the HUD home that we have now will be no more.
00:42:36.700And moving to Alexandria also will be a great culture and paradigm shift, getting out of Washington, D.C., and serving the people of America at HUD.