00:10:10.440I want to acknowledge that up front, but we at Heritage think we have at least one part of the solution, and that is to continue to advocate for and implement what is commonly now referred to as a realist foreign policy, which is to say, as Donald Trump, more than anyone else taught us, especially in his first term, that the United States will always have the most lethal, efficient military, hopefully used more sparingly.
00:10:37.000When it is used, it needs to be proper.
00:15:25.100Number one, I believe it when I, I mean it when I say it.
00:15:29.120I think the president's earned that trust.
00:15:30.860He has been exceptional across the board,
00:15:34.300especially regarding national security and foreign policy.
00:15:36.880But the second is, maybe for someone who doesn't believe that as fervently as I do, the president's a pragmatist, and he understands competing goods.0.84
00:15:46.620He understands that it is a good to denude the evil regime of Iran of its military power.0.85
00:15:53.180It is a good to eliminate from the chessboard in the Middle East Iran's military nuclear program.0.94
00:15:59.400It's also a good to pay attention to the American economy, which has, I think it's ready to just
00:16:04.880take off and have a Trump boom, but it's being held back by the oil prices that are generated,0.66
00:16:10.260of course, from Iran. And it's also really important for Americans to see this president,
00:16:14.540who was elected in large part because of his focus on the domestic agenda, to be back focused
00:16:19.200on the domestic agenda. I know that my friend, President Trump, doesn't like to hear that
00:16:24.760observation right now, because he rightly wants to see this war to a conclusion, and I applaud him
00:16:29.540for that. But over the next weeks, it's going to be really important that he does so.
00:16:34.480Right. Do you think concern over the war is something that is largely felt by independents
00:16:41.380and conservatives? Or do I just feel like that because I'm seeing commentators, fellow podcasters
00:16:47.680really, really press Trump on this? And I think it has to do with Israel. It has to do, I think,
00:16:54.660with Charlie being gone somewhat, because Charlie was always the one to kind of help us understand
00:16:59.940what Trump is thinking and why. But then also, I think it has to do with this war, and some people
00:17:06.500feel betrayed. I mean, how representative do you think that is of the voters?
00:17:11.980I think it's very representative. I mean, it may be a touch more vocal because of the nature of
00:17:17.080podcasting, right? But I think one of the geniuses of how Heritage was founded is that while we're
00:17:24.820headquartered in Washington, D.C., we're supported by normies, by everyday Americans. And I'm often
00:17:31.380asked the question, you know, how can you, Kevin, or your colleagues stay normal and not be out of
00:17:36.480touch like everyone else in Washington? Well, because of the people we hang out with, right?
00:17:40.380And so I know what I hear from you and other very thoughtful podcasters who are certainly
00:17:45.100supportive of the president, but offering some constructive critiques about the Iran conflict
00:17:49.820is representative of what people are saying. In fact, I'm just going to drill down a little bit
00:17:54.020more if I may. The most common thing that I hear if I'm out in the Shenandoah on the weekend or
00:18:00.620on heritage business visiting with everyday Americans is, and these are from dyed-in-the-wool
00:18:05.380MAGA supporters, like Trump is the end-all be-all. They support the president. They certainly support
00:18:10.660our servicemen and servicewomen. They are willing to support the Iran conflict, provided it's time
00:18:16.100limited. But they say in the very next breath, what about grocery prices? What about gas prices?
00:18:23.460And what I would want the president to understand is when they're airing those questions, they're
00:18:28.580not airing questions questioning his leadership or his authority. They're wondering when he's
00:18:34.260going to be able to get back to turning his attention to that because they trust him on it.0.91
00:18:38.320And I think that's really what, if it's the end of the summer and we're still in Iran, that's going to be a real problem, not just for the president, but for conservative policymakers in Washington is trust by the base on focusing on what they were elected to do, which is to be focused on the domestic agenda.0.59
00:18:56.780Right now, the president can do both, but I think the clock is ticking.
00:19:01.060Yeah, and it can be hard, especially when an American is struggling to see the importance of engaging in a foreign conflict.
00:19:08.900It's not that there's not the capacity to understand, but all of us are like this.
00:19:12.760When there's a pressing issue right in front of us, we can't think about the thing that is far away or in the future or something.
00:19:18.560And so I think people want to feel the relief.
00:19:20.960They hear the news that good things are happening economically, that good things are happening in the Justice Department or good things are happening at the border.
00:19:27.980but they want to be able to see it and feel it in their own communities and i think some do but they
00:19:34.020really want to feel it you know they want to feel that relief i did i'm glad you put it that way
00:19:39.060because what i hear from a lot of trump supporters is they want to see the grocery and gas prices
00:19:46.760come down to the level the president says they're going to right and it isn't just for their own
00:19:51.480benefit we all want that right it's that they want this president to succeed yeah and so the reason
00:19:56.280I can sit here as a not just professional, but also personal supporter of the president
00:20:01.040is because I believe so much in his agenda. He's succeeded in closing the border,
00:20:06.140zero border crossings, zero border crossings of the Southern border.
00:20:09.440I think most people don't even realize that.
00:20:10.600In the last few months. I know. And I just got back from a preliminary briefing from
00:20:15.800some senior economic advisors in Congress. I think the second quarter economic data
00:20:20.340is going to be very good, especially if the Iran conflict comes to a conclusion this April,
00:20:26.020which means the third quarter will be great.
00:20:28.260I want that for Americans, left to right.
00:20:31.340But it also will have the political benefit of the midterms.
00:22:47.500I think that it will. That was certainly a PR problem. The administration let the left take advantage of them. And that administration of all administrations should know better. But it happened. Having said that, there is a lot of political support, including heritages, behind revitalizing the mass remigration, the mass deportations.
00:23:09.240I think that has to happen, not just as a matter of justice, but also as a matter of
00:23:14.440political trust to make sure that this movement includes that.
00:23:17.960So A-plus on southern border enforcement.
00:23:20.800Interior enforcement has been choppier, but in fairness to the administration, that's
00:23:25.740because of the plethora of sanctuaries, cities, counties, and states.
00:23:29.000So what we're trying to do at Heritage in this coalition on deportations is to provide
00:23:33.520the political air cover for the administration to ramp back up on that.
00:23:36.680The administration has also done a good job on fiscal policy. This is something that is not President Trump's passion. He's someone who is more willing, I think, as a pragmatist to spend money than to cut. He's not a fiscal hawk.
00:23:53.560The one big, beautiful bill, imperfect, it's a reconciliation bill, by definition it is,
00:23:58.980actually is, I think, by the end of the second quarter, as I mentioned, going to directly
00:24:02.580result in what we will probably come to know as a Trump boom.
00:24:05.820So it's a little bit of a preliminary grade on the economy, but I think he's done well
00:33:16.700Why is marriage so important if we're talking about America reaching her glory days again?
00:33:21.860Marriage is the most important because it is the farthest upstream factor from all the things we've just been discussing.
00:33:29.980I won't bore you and your audience with the hundred steps of the connection between the decline of marriage and what we were just talking about.
00:33:35.560You can tell us some of the steps. It's fascinating.
00:33:37.560But we'll stick to the main focus, which is to tell you something, you know, marriage rates have declined.
00:33:44.340And that has been a problem for 50 years in the United States.
00:33:47.420But what has aggravated that is a very serious and steady decline in birth rates.0.53
00:33:52.300And so the reason that this is important, which is not to be pedantic, is that without marriage and births of Native-born Americans, regardless of their ethnic background, you're simply not going to perpetuate the society.0.92
00:34:04.120You're going to have to rely on immigration.0.94
00:35:55.120We understand this is not $500,000, but it's a start.
00:35:58.520The second thing that we advocate for in this paper is an expansion of the adoption tax credit, which is about $17,000 to help subsidize adoptions.
00:36:08.360Why do we as Americans subsidize adoptions?
00:36:14.240And so if that's the case for adoptions, then implicit in that law is that we honor births in this country.
00:36:22.100So we thought, well, if we're going to honor adoptions, which are outstanding, how about we honor natural births if they're possible for that married couple?
00:36:30.120And so each birth would have that tax credit with a 25% bonus for people who have three or more children.
00:36:39.320We believe that these policies have to be audacious if you're going to have a chance at turning the corner and not becoming a nation either of half the population by 2100 or a population of immigrants.0.99
00:36:53.480Nothing against them as people, but you're going to lose this country as it has been if that's the path that we continue to be on.0.99
00:36:59.860Yeah, wow. I think that more people than I believe five or 10 years ago are talking not only about marriage and birth and having more children. This is certainly a change to me, even from like my parents' generation, where it was just kind of, I don't know, it was just taken for granted that everyone would have one or two kids. But now, at least in my circles, we're talking about, okay, should we have one more? Like, let's add to the birth rate.
00:37:24.420Yes, let us contribute to this. But also, people are talking about the definition of marriage more than they were. I think five years ago, I felt like it was me and like three other people who were like, hey, this still matters. And we should still be talking about Obergefell. But it kind of felt like Republicans just left us on the field when it came to the definition of marriage, which matters if you care about children's rights and all the things that we're talking about.
00:37:48.760And so what really is the state of that battle?
00:37:53.080Is that just something that we have to surrender forever?
00:38:36.020At Heritage, we work on every policy issue.
00:38:38.140So we're working on all of these channels.
00:38:39.600I will just make this observation that in 1973 and 74 and 1979, people had a similar conversation, which is, gosh, do we just have to accept Roe v. Wade?
00:43:42.700I learned a lot of things. I happen to agree with that pastor. I think that that's true. And I learned early on in a previous leadership stop at a small Catholic college that you can't repeat things enough for people to understand. And that's on you, right? I'm not blaming colleagues or anything.
00:44:00.060I've noticed that too. I learned that in Washington, D.C., tenacity prevails over nonsense as long as you're willing to have it and as long as it's rooted in what's right.
00:44:22.960And I can speak on behalf of all of my colleagues, I think in particular our executive team, our senior management, we knew in spite of all of the press coverage, most of which was nonsense, some of it self-inflicted, I've spoken about that, that we were going to see it through.
00:44:41.360Not because we were Heritage pat ourselves on the back, but because everyone who walks into that building is virtuous.
00:44:48.220Everyone who walks into that building is committed to what we're doing.
00:44:51.260And we were just going to be so zealously focused on the work ahead that we would render nonsense, absurd, well-paid distraction by people in the city, everything that was being said.
00:45:04.600And so the greatest compliment that Heritage got over the last six months
00:45:09.180came from a friend of ours, and he mentioned this to me Friday night.
00:45:13.140We were just explaining to him and a few hundred donors all of these plans.
00:45:18.240And he said, you know, Kevin, this is a guy who was a CEO of a major company.
00:45:22.740He had been through a lot of battles, and he was looking for leadership lessons.
00:45:27.180He said the most impressive thing about Heritage is that during all of that,
00:45:31.900every rank and file employee must have been busting his or her tail because for y'all to
00:45:38.120be talking about all of these plans shows that you weren't distracted. And so for the people who
00:45:44.380didn't understand because I didn't speak clearly enough, that's on me. But for the handful of
00:45:51.000people who have perpetuated the nonsense, that's on them because they're not only wasting their
00:45:57.720and their donors' money, they're standing in the way of doing the everyday Americans' work.
00:46:03.560And Heritage has proven itself not only to be durable, but to be tenacious. And I guarantee
00:46:10.140you we're going to win. Okay. Can you tell me about the American Opportunity Agenda that
00:46:15.760Heritage is working on? This is one of those exciting plans, right? It is. It's one of the
00:46:20.060things that excites me as I sit here. One of the things, another leadership lesson that I learned
00:46:24.360along the way, is to package things. What I mean by that is, as an academic, maybe evidenced by
00:46:32.480this very conversation, I like to get into detailed explanations, but in this town for
00:46:37.420political consumption, we on the right have to do a better job of messaging. We need to tell better
00:46:42.460stories. You're excellent at putting a human face on things. At Heritage, what we've decided to do
00:46:47.440with the American Opportunity Agenda is package all of the ideas we have for policymakers in DC
00:46:55.280and at the state level to go sell to the American people. If I had a magic wand as we sat here,
00:47:01.020I think I would use it this way. I would say every conservative running for office in the
00:47:06.140midterms would endorse the American Opportunity Agenda. It's sort of like 94's contract with
00:47:11.760America, but even more substantive in policy. And the reason I can say that is this isn't purely
00:47:16.900heritage idea. This comes from other conservative groups all across this town, because heritage
00:47:21.900loves to work in coalitions. It's economic freedom and prosperity, the four cornerstones
00:47:27.360that I mentioned, family, national security, work, free enterprise. Also, what it means to be an
00:47:32.420American, American heritage. We happen to know that this is a popular agenda because we focus
00:47:37.780group and pull these things all the time. But the political consultant class in D.C. hates this idea
00:47:43.440because it's simpler it's less expensive and they don't want their client to be beholden to a
00:47:51.060conservative agenda so part of our challenge is to be able to sell it to members of congress
00:47:55.620and to the consultant class but ultimately it's going to be the agenda because the conservative
00:48:00.920movement writ large has not just heritage but many groups has succeeded in getting upstream
00:48:05.660of members of congress and i say that very respectfully that whenever we have another
00:48:11.260conservative Congress. I happen to think that will still be next year. But let's say it's 29 or 31 or
00:48:16.08033. This is going to be the agenda. We have to be talking about the things that everyday Americans
00:48:21.740care about, but to do so in a way that generates a political majority. You know, there's a sentiment
00:48:28.440out there right now that it's like the midterms don't really matter. Who cares about the midterms?
00:48:33.020We don't like President Trump anymore. There's like, you know, you call it like a black pill.
00:48:37.580There's a lot of people who are just super pessimistic.
00:48:40.340They think basically the right and the left, Republicans and Democrats are the same.
00:48:44.620Is that true that the midterms really are inconsequential?
00:51:29.860And she's governed not just on the left, but on the far, far left in a state that's truly a purple state.
00:51:36.080And what's going to happen is that actually I think people on the right will overcome being blackpilled because of what Carville said, because of the reality in Virginia.
00:51:45.720Because I think Trump, once he brings Iran to a conclusion, will remind people, even if they're a little disappointed in him, of why staying on this policy trajectory is the most important.
00:52:26.560sign the commitment to sign up to pray i'm going to be praying along with them praying that god
00:52:32.400would bring our nation to repentance that we would humble ourselves that we would pray to him that
00:52:38.240we would seek wisdom that christians would be bold courageous and clear and that the lord would
00:52:43.240just give us the mercy and the guidance that we desperately need especially our nation's leaders
00:52:48.860no matter what side of the aisle they're on adf works not only in america but all around the world
00:52:54.520to protect religious liberty, free speech rights, to protect the sanctity of life, and to protect
00:53:00.420the rights of women and girls. And so just join them in prayer. Go to joinadf.com slash Allie
00:53:05.000or text Allie to 838-84848. That's joinadf.com slash Allie or text Allie to 838-4848.
00:53:18.460Messaging is so important. If I could wave my magic wand, there's a lot of things that I would
00:53:22.960change but one of them would certainly be to like get a good publicist for republicans and just
00:53:29.880yeah we have we have a little bit of a hard time telling our own stories and representing in a
00:53:36.720human way why conservative policy is actually better for your kids and your grandkids and your
00:53:41.480neighbors and the poor and all of these people that you really care about the progressive policies
00:53:45.960aren't actually the ones that are helping they're hurting those groups and yeah heritage is doing a
00:53:51.520lot to change that messaging. And that really makes me happy. That's one of my biggest peeves
00:53:56.660with politics is that some of the best people have the worst messaging and we need help with it.
00:54:00.840No, it's so true. I was just doing a guest lecture for some students in the Northeast and
00:54:05.360they said, Dr. Roberts, why don't you like the term think tank? It's what you run. I said,
00:54:11.080we are that, but we don't like that phrase at Heritage because it's so passive and it denies
00:54:15.760all of these things we're doing upstream, right? Which is to help form public opinion.
00:54:19.720Yeah, that is so true. Okay, give us one last call. The normal American mom is listening. She's like, okay, I can't vote until November. What do I do right now to help make my community better and help push some of these values that we're talking about?
00:54:34.500Well, I'll be abusive and say two things because it's the spring.0.95
00:54:37.440Depending on the state where that mom is, the state legislature might still be in session,1.00
00:54:41.620and no doubt there could be some good work there.
00:54:43.720If you need some help there, check us out at heritageaction.com.
00:54:47.180But the second thing is start as local as you can.
00:54:51.960For my wife, it was the Homeowners Association.
00:54:54.460I mean, we're talking the local of locals.
00:54:56.220Because it prevented them assessing ridiculous amounts of money and probably going woke.0.91
00:55:01.060It sounds silly to say unless you've existed in an HOA.0.99
00:55:04.500But for a lot of suburban moms, think about just attending a school board meeting or a city council meeting or a county commission meeting.0.85
00:55:13.220Even if your kids don't go to public school.0.91
00:55:15.420It's even more powerful if they don't, because you're saying I care so deeply, not just as a taxpayer, but as a fellow American for other people's kids.
00:55:23.280This ought to be the affection we have for one another.