Ep 1125 ｜ God Bless 47! Here’s What’s Next ｜ Guest： Kevin Roberts
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Summary
Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation joins us to celebrate President Trump's Inauguration Day and talk about his vision for the future of the United States under Donald Trump and the conservative agenda he has in store for it.
Transcript
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It is President Trump's Inauguration Day, and we are so excited. We're celebrating here on Relatable.
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We are talking to Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation. We are going to take an exciting look
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into how Trump is going to overhaul America's most corrupt institutions and turn them back
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institutions that serve the American people, truly, hopefully, by the grace of God,
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making America great again. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Go to GoodRanchers.com, use code Allie at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com, code Allie.
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Hey, guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Well,
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it is a great day, not just because it's Monday. And I guess every day is a great day. This is the
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day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it so we can always rejoice every day that
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we are alive. But today is an especially great day because it is Inauguration Day, the day that many of
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us thought would not happen, not because Trump couldn't win, but because there is so much against
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him. And he did. He won handily. And this is a day that we have been anticipating for so long that
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finally we get a change in power and we're hoping for more peace and more stability and more prosperity
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for America to be the best, safest, healthiest, most prosperous place to raise a family. He's only
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got four years, but I think because he only has four years, he is going to be especially effective.
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And I think J.D. Vance is going to be an especially effective vice president. We will be talking about
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the highlights of the inauguration later this week. Today, we are talking to Kevin Roberts. He is the head
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of the Heritage Foundation, a huge conservative think tank, and you know them as the authors of
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Project 2025 or the organization that organized Project 2025, the center of so much media ire during
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the campaign. We're going to talk about that today. And if that ire was justified, what is Project 2025?
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Is it actually going to play a role in setting President Trump's agenda? We will talk about
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Trump's agenda. We will also talk about how to retake now corrupt and ineffective, counterproductive
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institutions like the FBI and the CIA, like our universities. And so it's a really, really good
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substantive conversation, and it will just get you excited about Trump's presidency if you're not
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already. And this is just a great mercy, just as a reminder, a great mercy of God. It's not something
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that we deserved to get rid of the inept and the, I would say, evil administration that we just had
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when we looked at the policies that they promoted, both here and abroad, and to give us a better
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leader. And yet that is what God has given us. And I think we can be really thankful for that. And
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there are some of you listening or watching who actually did not vote for President Trump,
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maybe only in the past few weeks, you've started to question some of your progressive ideals. And
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if that is you, then welcome. Or maybe you're just now getting into politics. You're only now realizing
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that politics matter because policy matters because people matter. Someone recommended the show to you
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and you are tuning in. Well, I am grateful that you are here and it is time for us to pray for
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President Trump and for this administration. Just as we prayed for Biden and his administration,
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we are called in scripture to pray for all of our leaders, whether we voted for them or not.
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And so I will be praying for President Trump, that God would give him humility, that God would give him
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wisdom, that God would give him vision and foresight and discernment, that God would be close to this
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administration, that they would make the right choices when it comes to filling all of the
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positions that need to be filled. I think they've made some great choices so far. There's still
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a ways to go. And I pray that God's righteousness would prevail. And I just want to remind all of you
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that now that we are in this broad coalition on the right, we've got the Make America Healthy Again,
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we've got the Make America Great Again, we've got the Christian conservatives like you and me,
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we've got people who are center-right moderates, even some people on the left, some people who are
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very socially liberal, economically conservative. We've got a mosaic of people here on the conservative
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side, on the right side, if you want to call it that, the non-leftist side. It is not our time,
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Christian conservatives, to compromise. It is not our time to say, well, let's just let the moderates
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get their way. I mean, Trump is moderate compared to us on a lot of issues. That doesn't mean that
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we have to be. We can support him. We can be glad. We can be thankful that he won this presidency.
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And we can also be an anchor on the right and say, no, I am not going to compromise on the definition
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of marriage. I am not going to compromise on the sanctity of life. I am not going to compromise when it
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comes to the reality of male and female, not just for children, but for all people. I am going to be
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an anchor over here in defense of the family, in defense of life. Yes, in defense of children,
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but also in defense of reality, in defense of truth. Do not buy the lie. And this is just as pertinent now
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as it was during the election. Do not buy the lie, Christian conservative, that you and you alone have to
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check your worldview, your beliefs, your faith at the door before you engage politically. Everyone
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is bringing the fullness of their beliefs into the political sphere to have these debates and
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discussions about policy, about culture, and may the best idea win. But you should unapologetically
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bring persuasively the fullness of your biblical worldview into the public sphere and be
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able to make a case for why God's definition of marriage and the family and gender and all of
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these wonderful things, God's definition of justice, why they are superior. Do not believe that you have
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to check your faith at the door or else you're some kind of so-called Christian nationalism. That's an
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intimidation tactic that is used against you to silence you. Don't buy into it. If God created the
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heavens and the earth and he did, then he is the authority over all of it. If he is the authority
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over all of it, then he alone gets to say what's right, what's wrong, what's good, what's bad, what's
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true, what's false, what a woman is, what she's not, and when life begins. And almost all of these things
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are answered in the first few chapters of the Bible. But specifically in Genesis 127, we see right there
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that God made us in his image male and female definition of the sanctity of life, the value of
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life that we're made in his image, the definition of male and female, and the definition of marriage
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right there. Christians don't have to read very far into the Bible to see what God very clearly thinks
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about those things. And that reality cannot be compartmentalized from the rest of life. In fact,
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the rest of life flows from what you believe about who created the earth, who is in charge
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of it all, what humans are, why we are here, what the family is, what our purpose, our calling is, all of
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these things. They all come from what you think about God. So do not believe in the next four years as we
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kind of have this conflict and struggle even amongst ourselves on the right about how far we go with
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social policy and how far we can push our conservative values. Just don't be fooled into thinking that
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you're the one that needs to take a seat. God's ways are better. And if we love our neighbor, we will
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unapologetically advocate for God's ways in all things. All right. God's eternal plan of redemption is
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always going off without a hitch. And today is a great day in that eternal plan of redemption. Jesus
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Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13, 8, no matter who is in charge. And yet
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we are very glad that President Trump is about to be in charge, at least in some way, starting today.
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And to kick off, unrelatable, this new administration, we've got Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation
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with a really fascinating conversation about what is about to go down when Trump steps into the White House.
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Kevin, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I'm so glad you're here.
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Lots to talk to you about. I am wondering what your feelings are on today, Inauguration Day.
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Well, Ali, it's a pleasure to be with you. You know, my family and I are big fans of yours and
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we have been for many years. And to your question about, of course, and to your question about
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Inauguration Day, this is the beginning of taking back this country, not just in terms of politics
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and policy. But if you think about what Donald Trump and J.D. Vance personify, which is that they
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love this country more than I think any other Americans, perhaps ever in history,
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the rest of us have something to learn, which is that beyond elections, beyond policy,
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let us be very serious as we go about our family lives, building our businesses,
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going to church, maybe going back to church this year, that those are all things that are far more
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important than Washington, D.C. In other words, ironically, on Inauguration Day, when all of our
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eyes are cast upon events in the nation's capital, as they should be, starting tomorrow,
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we really need to get about rebuilding our communities and being the kinds of Americans
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who deserve to be a self-governing people. I think that's going to be the legacy of this day.
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Heritage was at the center of a lot of media contrived controversy, as you very well know,
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during the campaign with Project 2025. Can you talk about that a little bit? Were you surprised,
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first of all, that Project 2025 became like the rallying cry of Democrats during the election?
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Boy, media contrived is the best explanation I have heard about that. I was not surprised that
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the radical left overreacted because that's what they do. You know, their performance theater about
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anything that conservatives do that might actually be conservative is guaranteed.
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What did surprise me to be completely candid with you, Ali, is the scale and scope of their
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overreaction. And clearly they thought, particularly at one point in the summer, that this was going to
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be the Achilles heel for President Trump and a lot of conservative campaigns. And once we started
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correcting the record, I think my comms colleagues at Heritage secured nearly 100 fact checks from
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really conservative outlets like CNN and USA Today, we realized that we were going to turn
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the corner. And of course, as it turns out, I think it was a net positive for conservative candidates
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because what people were telling me across the country for a couple of years was that it wasn't
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enough for conservatives to win, that they also needed to have a plan. It's obviously up to the
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president and vice president how much of that plan they want to use. But I think it was a real sense of
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security that in addition to winning elections, they would have conservative candidates, elected
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officials who actually knew what they were going to do, that they were going to have a blueprint. So
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it ultimately backfired. It was great to see. And we just can't get can't wait to get started
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on the next version of that in the 2028 presidential cycle.
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You know, it really just didn't stick the way that they thought that it was going to.
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There are still people out there, I realize, even in my audience who have friends maybe across the
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aisle who are still scared of Project 2025. They think that that is what is going into place
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tomorrow. And they believe that what is in Project 2025 is that you personally are going to go to
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their house, open their drawer, steal their birth control and run away. That seems to be like this
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crazy fear that has been stirred up in a lot of people on the left. Can you just tell us for those who
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still haven't heard, like, what is Project 2025? And does it actually have a role to play in Trump's
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agenda? Thanks for that question. Most succinctly, Project 2025 is this election cycle's version of
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something that Heritage has done since 1980 for President Reagan. And it is just a menu of
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conservative policies. It's actually on one level, Ali, really boring. It's what think tanks and
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public policy organizations do. But perhaps because it covers every policy area from international
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policy to education policy, and we are unabashedly conservatives, the Democratic Party and its
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affiliated institutions thought that they could turn it into something that would scare people.
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And so the advice that I would give, and I really do intend this to be friendly for people who are in
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the political center or maybe on the political left, is that whatever you've heard about Project 2025,
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is unlikely to be true. And so I would encourage you to go read about it, read the substance. What
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almost every person who's taken that advice from me has said, is that they may not agree with
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everything, but they have found nothing in it that would cause someone to be worried about continuing
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to do whatever it is that Americans are doing behind closed doors. Let's get on with conservative
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policy, with governing this country. We can have policy differences, but the lying and dishonesty,
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which is purposeful and behind which $75 million was spent really is pretty ridiculous.
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Yes. When I read it, because we did a deep dive on this show, I was looking for something. Okay,
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let me look for some things that are truly kind of scandalous that maybe I agree with, but I
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understand why this would make the left mad. And while, of course, I do understand that there are policy
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proposals in it that people on the left would not like. As you said, it was kind of boring. Like,
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there just wasn't anything in there that I was like, whoa, I can't believe they went all the way
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there. I mean, a lot of it is very typical. And I don't say this in a bad way at all, but typical
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Republican stuff that a lot of conservatives have been saying for decades. And so how they somehow
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created really this boogeyman of Project 2025. It was kind of interesting to watch, very dark to
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watch. But as you said, it showed me also that they had very little to run on if they had to lie
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about this kind of like boring bulk of policy prescriptions by a conservative think tank.
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It shows you how little the political left had run on this year. And look, in my lifetime,
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it may go all the way back to when I was a little boy in the 1970s and early 80s,
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while conservatives disagreed with the political left, the political left had a real viable and
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popular policy agenda. That isn't the case anymore. It really is based on, unfortunately,
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creating in a dishonest way, a complete mischaracterization of what the right wants to do.
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And if there's a silver lining to this whole story, Ali, it isn't just that this effort backfired on
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the left, but for a lesson that maybe all Americans, regardless of their political background, would
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agree on, is that it shows that in this era, when a lot of money can be spent to create in a dishonest
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way, a completely different picture of what reality is, that when you just stay the course, which is
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what my colleagues and I at Heritage did, and you continue to tell the truth, and you continue to
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correct the record, and you have friends like you in the media who are willing objectively, as you did,
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to go into that and say, look, I'm going to look for something that's really objectionable here.
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And when you realize that that's not the case, and you tell the truth, a majority of Americans still
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will respond to that. And I think we ought to all take that as real encouragement that our political
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You and I are Christian conservative, Christians first, conservatives. And we, because of that,
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also have what are considered socially conservative views, culturally conservative views. Not everyone
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who votes Republican shares our views about the definition of marriage, family, things like that.
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And now that we kind of have the Make America Healthy Again movement with the MAGA movement,
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we've got lots of different kinds of people over on the right, which is great. We needed everyone to
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win this election. It's a good thing. But we've got some pretty big disagreements. How do you see those
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disagreements? I don't want to call them factions because there's so much that we agree on as well.
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But the different segments, I would say, of the Republican Party, how do you see that playing
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out in the Trump administration over the next few years?
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Boy, historically, it's always difficult to take a diverse political coalition and harness that
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political power into governing policy power. But that's certainly what Heritage and I are committed
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to doing. Obviously, we have some differences of opinion with some people, not just new adherents to
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this coalition, but gosh, longstanding friends. And you know what? That's okay. What we try to do at
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Heritage, and it's the first part of answering your question, is just be part of the conversation.
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That is, in other words, as my colleagues, I think, personify every day, is don't just disallow a
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conversation from happening because we think we disagree with someone. The second example that I will
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use is to riff off your comment about Make America Healthy Again. That's something that really has
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animated a lot of people for whom political ideology may be important, but really what we're all
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realizing, whether we're liberals or conservatives or somewhere in between, is that we've been sold
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a bill of goods from big pharma, from big government, from local pharmacists, local doctors, and it's time
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to correct that. And the beauty of the Maha movement is that it is apolitical. I mean, the motivation of
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RFK is not some political ideology. And so let me just take that one level deeper, if I may, but for
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you and for me and your audience who are social conservatives, and let's talk about the issue of
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abortion in life. RFK is not nearly as committed to the pro-life cause as you and I are, although I've
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learned that he's more so than maybe he was in the past. If we look at lifestyle, if we look at quality
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of life, if we look at the health of mothers, if we look at the health of expectant mothers, and you
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start to sort of impose or implement the Make America Healthy Again agenda on that in public policy, all of
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us, whether someone's an expectant mother or like me, a middle-aged dad, we all can benefit from that. That's
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so far upstream specific policy proposals regarding what we want to do with abortion. Our operating theory here at
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Heritage, where we're all pro-life, is that we can gain some momentum, some muscle memory, if you will, of
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working together such that at some point down the road, I don't know what year that will be, both in
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state policy and federal policy, we might be able to develop an emerging consensus on what the right
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federal policy regarding abortion is. I know that that sounds fantastical because almost everyone on the
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left and in the center wants us to say that there's nothing that we can do regarding abortion. I just think
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we need to take things in the proper order, the proper chronology. We need to be magnanimous. That doesn't mean
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that we're going to betray our principles, but it does mean that we're willing, as I think our Lord would want us to
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do, to have conversations with everyone. And I think that's going to help American society.
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A lot of people are freaking out about the possibility of the dissolution of the Department of Education. I've even got
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some conservatives in my audience saying, hang on a second, my friends are saying that this is going to be
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terrible for American education. Am I supposed to be supportive of this? So what do you think about getting rid of
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the Department of Education altogether? And what do you think realistically will happen while Trump is in office?
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I understand why that might sound scary to anyone, even some conservatives. But the first point is the reason that
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we want to eliminate the Department of Education. And make no mistake, if you gave me a magic wand to do one thing in
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public policy, that's what I would do. The reason that we want to do that is to improve education. And so
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for people who are skeptics of that, just bear with me for one moment. I am a fifth generation teacher.
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I only went to public schools. I'm an unabashed conservative. I think one of the greatest
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achievements in American society is our public school system. But since 1979, when the Department of
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Education was created, all that's happened after spending trillions of dollars and centralizing power in
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Washington, is that education has deteriorated. I'm not saying that President Carter, who had this
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idea, or other people who support the Department of Education are ill-intentioned. I'm just saying that
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they're not looking at the data. And so here at Heritage, and certainly for me as a social science guy,
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I want to look at the data. And I want to do something different on behalf of America's school
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children and teachers. And what we need to do that's different, Ali, is to eliminate this
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over-centralization of power in Washington. Give that back to the states, give that back to local
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entities, and very importantly, give it back to parents and families. And let's have a block grant
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system in which states compete for dollars and the money that they get is reflected on the achievement
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that they're able to secure on behalf of America's school children. That system will be far more natural
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for America, far more natural for America's families, and also think it's going to be a lot
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more appropriate, if you will, for the 21st century. What we're doing is outdated. And for us to say that
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is not to call into question fellow Americans who are a little skeptical about this big change. We get
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it. But at Heritage, and frankly, at Project 2025, we're so transparent. We've laid out step by step how
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this can be done. And I think it's very important to sum up here that President Trump and the Secretary of
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Education and other leaders be in constant communication with the American people about
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why they're taking each one of those steps, because it is a very legitimate skepticism to have
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It's hard for us to even imagine it, because obviously, for most of us, our entire lives,
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we've had a Department of Education. And we've also been told that that is the foundation of all good
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education in the United States. And there's been really no reason for a lot of people to question
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it. But over the past, I mean, 20 years, but especially in the past five years, as people have
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asked themselves, not only, okay, is my child even getting a good education? Can they read? Can they do
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the same math problems that I could do at their age 20 plus years ago? But also, what are the values
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that they're learning? And are the teachers or the administrators at this particular school actually
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in direct opposition to what I am teaching them at home? And it's just made a lot of people over the
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past few years who would have said they're huge supporters of public education in America,
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ask, okay, who is behind this? How much power do the teachers unions have? What is actually going on
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at the Department of Education that these changes, unnecessary and counterproductive changes,
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have been happening over the past few years? Speaking of parents and parental rights, you
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mentioned, what is this parental bill of rights that I hear talked about so much?
00:26:00.080
Another revolutionary idea, which is a reminder that it isn't bureaucrats in Washington, even if
00:26:07.000
they're well-intentioned, it isn't politicians, even politicians we agree with in Washington, who are in
00:26:12.680
charge of this society. It is parents. And of course, the overall lockdowns under COVID really
00:26:20.040
amplified this already existing move for state legislatures and for Congress to issue this
00:26:26.760
parental bill of rights. That is, they of course are in charge of their kids' education. They also need
00:26:32.160
to know to speak about the issue that's particularly timely as we have this conversation. If their child
00:26:38.580
is in conversations with teachers or school officials about going through a so-called gender
00:26:43.440
transition, they are also need to be, parents need to be notified about anything that might be a mental
00:26:49.380
health concern. In other words, what's happening, and frankly, it's related to the previous conversation
00:26:54.660
thread we had about the Department of Education, is that as we have centralized power in the Department
00:27:00.060
of Education, that that centralized power has crowded out, it's actively pushed out the role of parents,
00:27:06.540
the right of parents to be obviously not just involved, but leading such conversations.
00:27:11.980
One of the great successes that has happened because of conservative public policy advocates
00:27:16.620
is the parental bill of rights. It's passed in a number of states, obviously a big issue in front
00:27:21.760
of Congress. We think that restoring that, that amplifying this call for a parental bill of rights
00:27:27.640
is not only common sense, it's apolitical, it transcends a lot of the political divide. And we think
00:27:33.380
looking at public policy through the perspective of parents is one way that we can develop some
00:27:39.620
momentum in Washington and in state capitals around the country toward good education policy,
00:27:45.340
also policy in other arenas, such as reminding people that boys are boys and girls are girls,
00:27:50.740
and that at the very least, parents should have 100% of the say regarding that.
00:27:55.320
Absolutely. I've had parents on this podcast who would not describe themselves as conservatives,
00:27:59.880
as Christians, as Republicans, who have had their children taken out of their custody
00:28:04.940
because their child declared themselves a particular gender that does not align with their sex.
00:28:11.560
The parent didn't go along with it. And the child was taken to a home that affirmed this newfound
00:28:16.820
so-called identity. They were able to butcher their bodies and immutably or irreversibly change
00:28:24.220
their bodies through a hormone regimen. And these parents, the people who have the only people
00:28:30.880
really who have the best interest of their child at heart are completely excised out of the child's
00:28:38.500
life. And so I think you're right that this is an issue, not just the parental rights issue when it
00:28:44.120
comes to that, but this issue of boys declaring themselves girls and vice versa, especially boys and men
00:28:50.880
entering into girls and women's spaces, is one that has woken a lot of people up, I think moved a lot
00:28:57.640
of people over to the right and voting for President Trump. I think a lot of people in the Make America
00:29:02.800
Healthy Again movement, whether or not they are with us on the definition of marriage, when life begins,
00:29:07.640
things like that, they realize not only the absurdity of this issue, but the danger of this issue.
00:29:14.140
And while Trump wasn't as strong on some things during the campaign as I wanted him to,
00:29:18.560
like abortion, on this one, he has been pretty steadfast. So what are you anticipating when it
00:29:24.840
comes to this transgender issue policy-wise in this next administration?
00:29:32.400
I think by the end of this calendar year, the scourge, the tragedy, the evil of properly trained
00:29:40.720
physicians butchering the bodies of young Americans will come to an end. And it will come to an end
00:29:47.480
because of stalwarts like you in the media, stalwarts who are governors of states. And one of the most
00:29:55.640
important stalwarts on this issue has been President Trump. And so there's certainly a role for federal
00:30:01.000
action on this that I think we will see continue here in Washington. And if we do that, that is, if we end
00:30:08.500
this terrible practice, then the United States will simply be catching up with none other than the
00:30:14.840
European Union, which, of course, in most parts of the European Union, most European countries
00:30:19.900
have disallowed this practice. And that, of course, is going to be just in time before this really
00:30:27.200
catches fire. Unfortunately, as we do every January at Heritage, in our gender ideology conference,
00:30:35.240
we have a few people who've gone through transition surgeries. It will not have prevented the terrible
00:30:40.980
tragedy that's been inflicted upon other Americans, but at least there won't be any others. The key
00:30:47.280
thing here, Ali, is that we learn our lesson. And the lesson is that when you take a handful of
00:30:53.520
physicians, a handful of medical schools who are able to get this practice approved by their different
00:31:00.200
licensure boards in various states, we have to understand there is a role for common sense and for
00:31:06.760
those of us who are social conservatives to say, on behalf of American kids, on behalf of biology,
00:31:12.720
on behalf of parents, we have to prevent these kinds of practices. I'm hopeful that not only we
00:31:17.680
secure that victory, but that it becomes a lasting lesson for us across the board in decades to come.
00:31:24.800
The House just passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. I mean, this seems to be just the
00:31:31.440
most common sense piece of legislation. Unfortunately, only two Democrats, but good for these Democrats.
00:31:37.940
Two Democrats from Texas voted for it. The rest of the Democrats voted against it. HR 28 says to amend
00:31:44.240
the Education Amendments of 1972 to provide that for purposes of determining compliance with Title IX
00:31:49.780
of such act of athletic sex shall be recognized based solely on a person's reproductive biology and
00:31:55.700
genetics at birth. I mean, in a way, it's kind of sad that we even need to spell that out.
00:32:01.440
But I do think even before Trump is president, that it's good that Congress is all already making
00:32:07.740
this clear and moving in that direction. I do think that congressmen, congresswomen are realizing
00:32:14.240
this is whether you like it or not. This is the direction that the country is moving. And I actually
00:32:21.760
hope to see more Democrats realize that. And even if it's just because it's politically advantageous to
00:32:28.100
them, start speaking out about fairness in sports, at the very least, when it comes to women.
00:32:34.800
It's ridiculous that there aren't more Democrats who are willing to do that, to your point on the
00:32:39.360
substance of the matter. But just speaking to the politics of this, this is an 80-20 issue,
00:32:44.540
at least. In fact, one recent poll I saw showed that 85 percent of Americans support the legislation
00:32:49.820
that you just mentioned. And so, yes, hats off to those two Democrats. But almost every other
00:32:55.380
Democrat, every Democrat really should be supporting this because of the common sense.
00:32:59.760
Well, this is, but this sort of conveys a lesson about politics. Rank and file Democrats, pick your
00:33:07.240
state. You know, whether it's a blue state like New York or a red state like Texas, a rank and file
00:33:12.120
Democrat is supportive of this legislation. But the problem is when they become elected officials and
00:33:17.780
they're here in Washington, the institutional part of the Democrat Party prevents them from going along
00:33:23.900
with their populace, with their constituents. And that's really going to cause a reckoning for the
00:33:29.580
political left in this country. As a lifelong conservative, on the political level of this,
00:33:35.160
I relish that they have to go through this kind of controversy that they themselves have created.
00:33:40.120
But obviously, what's far more important than the politics is the human side of this. And it would be
00:33:44.480
great if we just bring this terrible practice to a close right now with their help.
00:33:55.940
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Tell me about your new book, Dawn's Early Light, Taking Back Washington to Save America.
00:34:56.120
Well, there are a lot of public policy leaders who write these books and nothing against them
00:35:02.300
or their books. And, you know, my book is not perfect. I was trying to write a book as the head
00:35:06.860
of the largest conservative policy organization in the world that caused people to think, that caused
00:35:12.640
them to be a little surprised. And so what I do with a little bit of edgy rhetoric is explain what's
00:35:18.580
at stake. And I will say that in a couple of things that I wrote about in the book well before
00:35:23.520
the conclusion of 2024, I sort of predicted the Trump victory and the man who wrote the forward,
00:35:30.300
J.D. Vance, is now the vice president of the United States. I also talked about the mismanagement
00:35:34.760
of California potentially leading to a massive wildfire in the southern part of the state. And I use that
00:35:41.640
concept of forest mismanagement, the lack of controlled burns in a literal sense in forests that
00:35:48.520
of course led to this tragedy in California, and apply that to what we need to do in politics and
00:35:54.320
policy. In other words, I name names, Allie. I talk about the New York Times and what used to be
00:35:59.920
called the Boy Scouts of America as entities that no longer are worthy of existence. Nothing against
00:36:06.100
the people who are in them, but they as institutions no longer deserve to call themselves American
00:36:12.200
institutions. And figuratively speaking, I argue in the book, we need to apply this concept of a
00:36:17.700
controlled burn and eliminate those organizations, those schools, those universities that simply are
00:36:23.720
doing no good, but actually doing a lot of harm. And I inject a personal story like a lot of people
00:36:28.800
and the vice president who was inaugurated today had some challenges in my family life as a child.
00:36:34.680
And I try to appeal to the quintessential American story of living the American dream,
00:36:40.000
which I dare say, based on what happened today in Washington, is still alive and well.
00:36:44.820
Yeah. You know, Christians built the many of the universities that now are the worst perpetrators
00:36:51.640
of this progressive activism that are turning out those who are out there in the streets,
00:36:56.880
anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, anti-American protesters. Many of them are products of these
00:37:05.240
Ivy League schools that actually have like a Christian pro-America foundation. What does it look like?
00:37:12.320
Can you give me an example of how America loving people can take back these institutions for the
00:37:19.380
good of the country? I'll give you two examples, both in education, because you know, that's my
00:37:24.340
first love, having founded a school and run a college. And the first would be what any parent
00:37:29.360
can do. And whether your child's in public schools, or whether they're in private schools,
00:37:33.640
or whether you're homeschooling, in all of those cases, you are using a curriculum. And you need to
00:37:39.860
have some skepticism about the curriculum that you're using. And so it doesn't matter if you're
00:37:45.080
not someone who says, I have enough formal education to do this. You're an American. Of course you do.
00:37:50.760
It doesn't matter if you're a business person or a liberal arts person or a physics person. Go ask
00:37:56.600
questions about the curriculum that your child is using. And I'm just here to tell you that if by simply
00:38:02.500
taking that simple act, you are going to learn more and you might discover something in some of those
00:38:08.080
cases where it's really bad. And if you discover that it's bad, then you need to take action. You
00:38:12.600
need to be more involved in your child's education. The second example is also in education, but it's
00:38:18.040
in universities and it involves public policy. I think that universities that take federal funds
00:38:24.860
for student loans and grants, for research, which is almost all of them, that if they have large
00:38:30.980
endowments and they are teaching things that are anti-American and they have students to whom they are
00:38:36.020
promising a great education and they're not delivering it, that their endowments ought to
00:38:40.520
be taxed by the federal government. I think that they need to lose some of the privileges they have
00:38:45.120
because frankly, they're living off the trough of the generosity of the American people,
00:38:50.300
but doing everything in their power to undermine the American dream. And what's particularly sadistic
00:38:56.640
about this, Ali, to your point, is that in so many of these cases, particularly all of the Ivy League
00:39:02.220
colleges, these are entities that have Christian roots. And there was a time when they offered the
00:39:08.960
finest education in the history of the world, and now they're at embarrassment. Federal policy ought to
00:39:14.960
treat them as such, rather than holding them up on pedestals.
00:39:19.080
What about our security apparatus in the United States? A lot of people are concerned about that,
00:39:25.280
especially in light of recent terror attacks. And you've got people asking, rightly so,
00:39:30.600
okay, how did these people get in? I mean, as far as we know, the person who committed the atrocity
00:39:37.020
in Louisiana was an American citizen, but how did they become radicalized? And how did this happen?
00:39:45.440
Were they already known to law enforcement? Could something have been prevented? And we just wonder,
00:39:54.340
are our intelligence agencies, are they effective? Are they operating in integrity? I think,
00:40:00.400
a lot of people would say no, in many cases, and people want to see an overhaul. I mean,
00:40:06.600
it's a national security issue, of course, and people don't like instability. That's one reason
00:40:12.460
why President Trump got elected. We don't like instability. We want him to bring back stability
00:40:17.280
and strength and protection. So tell us about that. Like, can there be some kind of overhaul?
00:40:23.180
The corruption runs so deep, sometimes it feels kind of hopeless.
00:40:28.460
It does feel hopeless. I'm more hopeful today than I was yesterday. Thank goodness President Trump won.
00:40:34.720
But boy, do some of his appointees have a big job ahead of them. John Ratcliffe at the CIA,
00:40:40.600
Kash Patel at the FBI, which I think is the most rotten of the rotten agencies, not just intelligence
00:40:45.860
agencies, but federal agencies, period. And we have to get them fixed for the American people.
00:40:51.000
Take, for example, the perpetrator in Louisiana. He is a native-born American. He is someone who
00:40:58.060
was radicalized, it seems, fairly recently before the attack. But think about the FBI's response
00:41:04.380
to that. On three or four different major questions in the first days following that tragedy,
00:41:11.740
they gave completely opposite answers to questions. And at the very least, that's incompetent and doesn't
00:41:19.080
breed any kind of confidence in their assessment. But what I've happened to come to know firsthand
00:41:25.100
because of the work that we do at Heritage involving some retired FBI agents is that the FBI
00:41:30.580
is rotten to the core. That in fact, someone like you or someone like me, maybe many people in the
00:41:36.160
audience, merely by being conservative is more of a target of FBI analysis and assessment than are people
00:41:43.340
who are real perpetrators like this man. And so this is precisely the kind of thing that has to be fixed.
00:41:49.360
I will say, Ali, that I am cautiously optimistic that it will. I'm only cautiously optimistic
00:41:55.520
because there is something that is very real and it's the deep state. And until and unless Trump's
00:42:01.240
excellent appointees to these intelligence agencies in leading them will just completely, in a figurative
00:42:07.280
sense, lop off the heads of the deep state, we're going to continue to have this problem. It is a
00:42:13.560
huge priority, not just for the American people, but for free societies around the world.
00:42:18.820
Yes. I mean, you mentioned in your book some of the other non-governmental institutions, BlackRock,
00:42:23.640
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I mean, these organizations, George Soros' Open Society,
00:42:29.220
they've also got a lot of power. Now, not as much power as I thought they did because I thought there
00:42:34.680
was no way they were going to allow Donald Trump to win, whatever it means, legal or whatever,
00:42:42.000
that they could employ to stop Donald Trump from becoming president. I certainly thought that they
00:42:46.820
would pull out all the stops. And so, as you said, there's already more hope than I thought,
00:42:53.280
but it sounds like people need to read your book to understand the specifics of how these people can be
00:42:59.840
stopped and how the institutions that used to exist for America's good can go back to serving
00:43:07.100
that purpose. So, I'm guessing they can get it wherever books are sold. Is that correct?
00:43:12.300
That's correct. They can get it anywhere. And to your point just now, just very briefly, I try to use
00:43:16.820
stories of regular Americans, people who would say that they're not special in the same way that
00:43:22.340
I would say that I'm not special. My heritage colleagues are not special, just ordinary Americans who
00:43:26.880
work behind enemy lines here in Washington, D.C. on everyone's behalf. But I used stories of those
00:43:32.440
ordinary Americans in the book to encourage others who are reading the book to understand
00:43:37.220
they, too, can play a really small part that has a big consequence in taking back the country. And yes,
00:43:44.520
you can find the book anywhere good books are sold. That's Dawn's Early Light,
00:43:49.260
Taking Back Washington to Save America. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.
00:43:55.000
Allie, you're a great American. It was a pleasure. Likewise. Thank you.