Ep 356 | Biden's Call for 'Unity' & the Future of the GOP | Guest: Rep. Dan Crenshaw
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Summary
On today's episode of Relatable, I'm talking to Rep. Dan Crenshaw (D-Illinois) about his thoughts on the Inauguration and what we can expect in the next four years as Democrats take control of congress and the White House.
Transcript
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hey guys happy thursday welcome to relatable yesterday was the inauguration and we are going
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to dissect some parts of the inauguration on monday we'll talk about it more thoroughly i'm
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also going to talk about i think depending on what happens in the next few days if there's some
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breaking news that we have to cover on monday we might have to change things but right now i'm
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planning on talking also about this accusation of christian nationalism it was talked a lot
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about when there was christian symbolism mixed with confederate flags and other awful atrocious
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blasphemous things at the capitol riot on january 6th but there have been some convoluted definitions
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i think of what christian nationalism actually is we've talked about it on this podcast i want to
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analyze it more thoroughly and compare what actual christian nationalism is to the accusations of it
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and also to the integration of the christian faith with the inauguration of joe biden and what this
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all means and how we should think about it so we'll get into all of that on monday today i'm talking to
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congressman dan crenshaw we're talking about some of the promises and calls to unity that we heard
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from joe biden and democrats uh at the same time that many democrats and cronies in the media are
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calling everyone who disagrees with them you know white supremacists and all of these awful names and
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if that unity is possible what we can expect from the next couple years in the next four years
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as democrats control congress and the white house um we'll talk also a little bit about immigration
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policy so i'm really interested or i'm excited for you guys to hear um some of this insight because i
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know that you're interested in that um okay so without further ado here is congressman dan crenshaw
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congressman thank you so much for joining me again i want to talk to you about a few things today
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first on the heels of inauguration i'm sure that you watched the inauguration ceremony everyone
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listening did a lot of calls to unity to faith to togetherness um and i you know i'm sure you want
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that and i want that as well seems to contradict though some of the messages that we're seeing from
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your democratic colleagues some people in the media who tend to castigate and chastise everyone
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who disagrees with them even slightly so do you have hope or optimism for us being able to come
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together and actually make some progress for the country look i i'm okay i'll always say that i'm
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optimistic um and there's certain things that we can work on that i think would be beneficial um
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but we're we're looking into an immediate reboot of the obama era when it comes to left-wing media
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left-wing pundits um the just the way they describe the right you know long before trump ever showed up
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to the stage um we would always kind of repeat this basic mantra which is the right thinks the left is
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wrong but the left thinks the right is evil right they think we're we're a bunch of stupid rubes that
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just if they only understood how much progress they wanted to make and how much advancement
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is is in store for our society if we would just listen to these these enlightened progressives
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um that's all that's back in full force okay the the media doing all of their journalisming
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on um on what kind of shoes kamala harris is wearing and how cool and american it is and how how just
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down to earth she is oh my god um you know what the president is uh what he has for his ice cream i mean
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it's just what who's going to get the peloton first in the white house i mean oh my god you know the
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really important stuff and meanwhile just like and and because obviously just obviously according to
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the media all of the policies that they're going to put in place are just exactly what you'd want so
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we don't even really need to cover them the pros and cons the cost the benefits we don't even need
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to cover that stuff because it's just so obviously good we'll just talk about what they're wearing
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today because they're basically our little progressive celebrities okay yeah so that's
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that's what we're in store for and it just irks it just irks conservatives it just irks i mean to a
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really deep level yeah it's funny like a friend of mine a democrat friend of mine was texting me today
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um with what i believe is just the most condescending message about like hey this is you guys should be
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happy about this because it's like an it's a it's an opportunity for you to just just really like
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get rid of all the bad stuff for your party it's like your independence day and i'm just like oh god
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like even if i agree with like the problems that you're noting in my own side right because i see
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problems on my own side of course like i'm i freely talk about them but i don't want to hear your
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condescending tone about it right because one i don't think you get it and two it's just it's just
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annoying and if you to paint 75 million people as as these these dumb uh uh bitter greedy rubes that
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just don't understand your enlightenment i mean it's i'm just so sick of it and you're just hearing
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it constantly okay so that's my rant ali yeah well we're hearing people say i mean on that we've
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literally heard people use the term i think it was katie couric to to um on some show she was talking
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about uh deprogramming the people who voted for donald trump even though people haven't said
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explicitly hey we need these re-education programs they're basically implying it they're saying okay
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how do we organize in such a way that we get all the people who voted for donald trump tell them that
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they've been lied to and deprogrammed them but i mean our values aren't going to change there's a
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reason why we couldn't bring ourselves some of us to vote for joe biden our policy positions most of
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the time we're not going to change is there going to be any kind of sincere efforts from the other
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side from the liberal media to try to understand hey this is why we voted the way that we did even
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those of us who maybe didn't love everything that donald trump did because that's the only way i think
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that we're going to achieve any kind of so-called unity if it's even possible but i don't think they
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want to understand me or us at all no no and they and the people who can make intellectual arguments
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like myself and like you can and like and frankly you know conservatives just i like to say this
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conservatives should feel a sense of optimism we have a great bench of people like you and i would
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like to say people like me who we just didn't have 10 to 15 years ago people who can really speak to
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uh young americans and speak to a wide variety of americans not just hardcore conservatives
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about why we believe what we believe we should be optimistic about our ability to make those
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arguments but what does the left do i mean they they they try to destroy me i've got a bunch of
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harvard students trying to revoke my degree which is just kind of hilarious but also just a sad marker
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of our times right like you don't want if we don't agree with somebody cancel them cancel them and
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destroy their character i mean this this is this is their only tactic because they really can't win
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arguments the thing about my my fellow harvard students is that i know exactly what they're
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going to say before they say it they're very predictable their their reasoning on policy issues
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is about an inch deep and they're but the good ones like the real liberals the one who actually
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want to understand you know how we think i love watching their faces as i explain to them why we might
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fall on this section of a policy issue or fall on the side of a policy issue and it it's it's it's
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disbelief right it's like huh and think about it that way now that's what a real liberal does okay and
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there's few and farther there are fewer and further between unfortunately but that's what a real liberal
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does the thing about the democrat party is they're not full of liberals anymore the thing about the
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left-wing media is they're not full of liberals anymore they're full of leftist progressives
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that believe in a post-modernist society and they believe in change for the sake of change and they
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have no problem trampling on the first amendment or the second amendment or whatever amendment you
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choose in order to get their way they don't they don't like the republic as its structure they prefer a
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pure mob democracy and they want to structure different constituencies within that to get to
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their 51 percent and this is the real goal that's why you won't see the kind of healing that they
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sort of like to to give this um you know to give some um talking points to and that's all it is i
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mean if they were going to do it they would be doing it now and then slowly revert back to their own
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their old ways i mean that would be a that would be the best strategy that i could imagine if you're
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them but they're i mean they're not even trying to hide their contempt for the country right and they
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feel justified because of the events of a couple weeks ago which you and i both agree were egregious
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and embarrassing and awful and criminal um but they're using that to then uh apply whatever
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standards they're placing on those people or whatever descriptors are placed on those people
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to apply them to everyone else who voted for donald trump but of course they don't hold themselves to
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the same standard when people who voted for joe biden are burning down cities and uh destroying
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people's businesses i think you talked about the media hypocrisy irking people that hypocrisy really
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irks conservatives too even if we do have a desire to come together seeing that kind of
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duplicitousness from politicians from the people who say that they want to reconcile and come together
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it's just rubs us the wrong way it's it's not though it's not the way it's not the way that i that
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we're going to be brought together i don't think do you no no i mean like i was very outspoken um
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on on january 6th about what happened and uh i took a lot of heat from it from our side right
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because because you know and i get it right i i i get the reaction the visceral reaction it's like
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don't apologize for anything because look at them i understand that guys but but if i if i am to
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maintain my intellectual consistency if i if i am to maintain the moral high ground and i think it's
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pretty important that your leaders have these two things okay intellectual consistency and moral
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high ground otherwise otherwise when i start making the argument that democrat politicians
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and democrat leaders are indeed responsible for the blm riots because i do believe they are
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because of their rhetoric because when you tell people that they're oppressed and they have no hope
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in life and that cops are chasing them down in the streets don't be surprised if they burned a
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bunch of buildings down okay so i think that's a pretty good way to put lay moral blame on somebody
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so you've got to let me be intellectually consistent i mean that that's my message to
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the right when you're so mad at me because because i dare to acknowledge some some truth here
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um but i also acknowledge what frustrates everybody on the right which is that the left is full of liars
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and hypocrites and that they pretended that antifa doesn't exist they pretend that it doesn't matter
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or that it's even justified that that blocks and blocks of american cities are just being destroyed
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by these left-wing mobs i mean over just the past couple of weeks too yeah by the way but there's
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they're still smashing up businesses in portland and that's a whole other story i think it just blows
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my mind that people in portland are still voting for this yeah um but they are so i mean fine i guess
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that that's your thing guys yeah um but uh you know don't bring it here it's it's really sad and
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it's listen it's not going to work this this fake unity message that we keep being uh told is going to
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happen yeah um and i'd also like to point something else out to my my leftist friends you
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know i i don't plan on going easy on biden but look how i look how i go at it all right i list
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specific policy issues that i disagree with and i explain why they're wrong and why i want to fight
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against them i don't just call you evil i don't just call him old or seen i don't insult him i just
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i go after the ideas i go after the policy issues maybe the left could learn something a little bit
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about that and acknowledge that there's there's there's fundamental policy disagreements and
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ideological disagreements in our country and confront those where they're at confront me
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confront my argument directly instead of always going always trying to flank me with some kind
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insult to my character they certainly could learn something from that but i think that they see what
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works and they see what's effective in some ways is that winning the culture war does make it does
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mean in some cases making every issue a moral issue and holding ideas that you disagree with
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the person has to be castigated as evil if you want to shame people into believing what you believe
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or at least saying that they believe what you believe so unfortunately they've gained ground
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doing that i think that there are too many conservatives and quite frankly probably too many
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republicans who are afraid to argue with democrats at least publicly about antifa or about the radical
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parts of black lives matter because they don't want to i think there are too many republicans in
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washington who don't want to fight the culture war democrats in washington want to fight the culture
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war and they're not scared to fight the culture war but i think a lot of conservatives feel like
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yeah you know there are some people in dc like you who care about cultural things who care about the
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values that we care about but there are a lot of republicans who do not who don't really care about
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conservative values and will not fight the culture war with the same ferocity the democrats do do you
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think that's a fair assessment or do you think i'm being too cynical a little too cynical i think i
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think that's been true for a while i think it's um changing quite a lot look i i know a lot of my
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colleagues it's not that they don't want to a lot of times they just don't know how or they don't have
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the platform um and they're not skilled at making these arguments it's very easy for a leftist to make
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the moral arguments on blm right because racism like that's it that's their argument like like i said
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before their arguments are about an inch deep okay it's a little bit harder for the conservative you
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need where they need two seconds to make their argument we need about 25 okay and you've got to
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do it and you've got to understand the the issue really well you've got to kind of test it against
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your peers a little bit test it against moderates how does this is what i'm saying getting through
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um because oftentimes if we do fight the battles it's usually our more you know the kind of members
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that live in an r30 district and they just say stuff and it actually and it's not good stuff
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and it usually puts us backwards instead of forward so there's there's there's delicate ways to make
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these arguments that are that that that that indicate that you're both fighting but also that
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you're winning you see i'm going to be saying this a lot lately um because i want to get the
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conservative movement on this track of redefining what it means to fight fighting is not just yelling
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back at them okay it's not just getting into our own rallies and our own safe spaces and just being
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like oh yeah blm and democrats and like raising my all of raising my taxes all of everything they're
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doing it's so bad everybody's like yes it's bad we're fighting it's like no you're not fighting
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you're rallying like rallying is good um you do need to do that sometimes but fighting is a little bit
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different in politics it's it's not what i did in the seal teams okay uh but there is but there is a
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common thread which is winning so we we always go into a fight with the with the intention to win
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and the only way to win in politics is to get more people on your side and the only way to get more
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people on your side is to speak to those independent voters and those moderates who
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i think instinctively agree with us on just about all policy issues um but don't want to hear the red
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meat rhetoric so so that's why i kind of disagree i think too many republicans just throw out red meat
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and they speak to only our base where you can actually tailor that message to to be more
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applicable to a wider a wider audience that's fighting that's what it means to fight now that's
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more difficult you got to go on the shows where that audience watches sometimes you got to go on
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the view at msnbc and cnn you got to choose your battles carefully like like i do um you know you've got
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to go to high school you've got to take those hard questions and and you've got to have a tone that
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works with that high school student so that's fighting and that's what actually works i mean
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and i think we did it in my district rather well i'm not going to pat myself on the back but
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but i i guess i am um you know we won a purple district by 14 points donald trump won this district
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by one point there's 40 000 votes that 40 000 vote difference so there's a way to success here like we
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can do this we don't we don't have to believe that our election system is is we shouldn't trust it
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anymore that there's no point in voting these are the wrong ideas that's kind of a take your ball and
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go home quitter quitter attitude and um i don't think we're quitters i think we're freedom loving
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red-blooded americans who love this country and we're going to keep fighting for it yeah i think
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there's certainly a time for offense and and defense i mean obviously i think this goes to your
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point is like the right doesn't have all of the mainstream megaphones that people on the left
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have we don't have as much of the mainstream media on our side certainly big tech is not
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necessarily on our side and so it does take a little bit more effort to get your message out
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there and we shouldn't always be on the defense but i think there is a there is a place for defense
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and i just wonder you know how many republicans are standing up and saying actually you know i mean
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there are there are some republicans saying this but actually you know the 1619 project shouldn't be in
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our curriculum and in this this charge of systemic racism let's look at the facts and see if this is
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actually true black lives matter it it seeks to tear apart the nuclear family that's not actually
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that's not actually good for society some of these cultural issues that a lot of people are thinking
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about and want to say but they don't feel like they have any cover democrats liberals in the country
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feel like they have cover because aoc is always going to say something more radical than they believe
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or bernie sanders or elizabeth warren or all these people they're going to be fighting the culture
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war they're on the front lines whereas i think conservatives feel like okay people like it's
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not the republicans in washington that are at the front lines it's people like me it's random people
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who have decided to start a podcast i think a lot of conservatives feel like they don't have any cover
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on the conservative issues because you know mitch mcconnell and and other republicans probably aren't
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going to be fighting the same battles that they feel like they're fighting so do you think there's any
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credence to that yeah sure you know we don't just want to throw red meat out but the base
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matters conservatives do matter we can't just always be appealing to the moderates right
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yeah yeah i mean i guess i'll answer your question more directly i i mean i still kind of disagree but
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just because i'm with these people all the time and they do talk about you and they and they they just
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don't have a platform like what i because i i see this criticism a lot and i and the question i asked
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back is well do you follow any of my colleagues on social media and everybody's like no i'm like
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i think i do are you on the team well not all but but most you don't follow most of them you might
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follow a couple yeah um and and so and then the other excuse that i'll give people is like okay like
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mitch mcconnell like when did the 60 when does the 1619 project even come up in the senate you know
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it doesn't come up in legislation so you know we ought we have different roles and i i appreciate that
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a lot of the base does think it's up to the representatives to speak on every single topic
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um but there's only so much time in the day this stuff is important it's it's why it's why i do it
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and i and i do it pretty often but that took a lot of time to kind of to make myself not only a
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legislative office but also a media office yeah like i we're we're not media offices and you know
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and so so i asked for some grace for my colleagues who who got in who ran for office to cut you know
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to work on tax reform and like that's okay yeah you know we we have we have culture warriors and we
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have tax reform warriors and i you know and i'm not making excuses for people like you should be able
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to do both to a certain extent but not everybody can so i mean i i guess it kind of sounds like i'm
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making excuses um for a lot of my colleagues but i'm also just not going to do what i see some of my
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newer colleagues doing and just and claim that they're the greatest messengers on earth and come
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to and i know what you're talking about yeah yeah and they're like well i don't i'm not going to be
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like those other loser republicans they never fight they never fight but like you know i agree
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you know i agree with that that there is a difference between some of the conspiracy uh focused
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people and people who i think that actually represent the cultural issue as well and there has to be
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a difference between those two things um and i do think i mean there are republicans who do it well
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like i wish there were more and maybe it is a lack of a platform thing i think sometimes you know we
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just kind of give up we just kind of give up on the cultural and social issues because we figure it's
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going to polarize people but the left never gives up on their cultural and social issues so we just give
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a little bit of ground each time um i do want to talk to you about impeachment we talked about how
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terrible january 6th was uh you decided though that you were not going to vote for impeachment can you
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talk about your reasoning behind that and kind of explain to us what's going on with the impeachment
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process now that president trump is no longer the president yeah well maybe i'll answer that second
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question first because i just don't know the answer to that one so that was an easy answer i i don't know
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what the senate's going to do there um it would be nice if they honestly just forgot about it i it's
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it's so unnecessary at this point i i'm so sick of hearing the left claim that look guys this is time
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to heal and the best way for us to heal is for all of you to agree with us that your that your current
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leader of the party is just evil and should be impeached and then we can heal right and then you guys
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can go on to maybe agreeing with more of our crazy policies that we love so much and that would be
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more better for healing so that's that's their message and i say um screw it uh now okay but why
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why not vote for an impeachment um because look a lot happened on january 6th and uh this was this was
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you could find a way to i think lay some moral responsibility on the president's and many others
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who i think hyped up that day poured gasoline all over the the house um and then and then told
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everybody to trample around in it until there was a spark okay that's that's basically what happened
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the question is is it really impeachable and and especially using the articles of impeachment that
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the democrats did write out and i would say no absolutely not um for a few reasons one if you're
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going to say that somebody incited uh the riots or incited the insurrection well i mean words matter
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so incitement is a legal term and it's very specific you have to have intent behind it and you have to
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have some kind of specificity behind it so he would have had to say no i really want you to break into
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the capital and go storm it and maybe hunt down mike pence like that's so i'm telling you i want you to
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do that so you'd have to be very specific and you'd have to intend for it to happen and none of none of
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that is none of that did happen um the second part of it why i vote against it like there was a week
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left there was a week left in his term this this feels this feels vindictive more so than than
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even um punitive justice it just feels it felt felt vindictive um and third you know i was just
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what i said was i just want to lower the temperature um the temperatures around the country is just too
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high this is the wrong way to do it um i think i think the president got that message uh wow i guess
00:23:57.720
now former president trump got that message uh because i think his statements over the last week
00:24:02.260
have been exactly what we've been needing to hear from him for say the last six months i mean
00:24:07.220
yeah the message from him uh yesterday and today if that was just his demeanor and the way he was
00:24:13.860
addressing american people on a daily basis uh over the summer i mean i he would still be president
00:24:19.340
right now guaranteed yeah because i don't think people voted for joe biden's policies i think they
00:24:25.460
were just angry with trump uh just just as their leader and his daily tweets and but um but you and
00:24:31.960
you could i'm not just making this up i mean you could see this in the polling as well where as far
00:24:36.460
as as far as who you agree with on the issues trump would consistently win that um but as far as who
00:24:41.020
they prefer as a leader trump would consistently lose that so that's but we do have a recipe for uh
00:24:46.620
success in the future um if we uh if we learn these lessons yeah which is which is a real shame because
00:24:52.520
i think that the biden policies will do real damage especially with the democratic controlled
00:24:58.960
congress but i think trump you know he got in his own way and there are people listening to and
00:25:04.300
watching this who will not agree with me who think that you know the tweets actually helped him but
00:25:10.060
people were really seeking some kind of stability and so-called normalcy and even though i i disagree with
00:25:16.340
voting for joe biden you could kind of see on a superficial level how you would just look at the two
00:25:22.100
candidates and say okay that guy kind of throws me off or makes me feel like things aren't stable and
00:25:27.840
this honest old good old uncle joe seems like he's going to bring some level of stability unfortunately
00:25:33.380
i don't think that's going to be um what happens what about the people who say okay i hear you
00:25:40.580
congressman but we gotta hold we gotta hold donald trump accountable this is not about you know
00:25:46.920
vindictiveness this is about showing people that you can't incite violence or whatever it is
00:25:52.520
we just gotta hold him accountable do you buy that argument at all
00:25:56.720
well i think morally accountable is different from legally accountable or impeachment accountable
00:26:05.080
you know there's different levels of accountability and i don't mean to like be cute or like split hairs
00:26:09.560
but but that's the my job when i'm making such an important decision so um i i think the fact that
00:26:17.620
he wasn't re-elected is a pretty big form of accountability um and this is extremely damaging
00:26:23.540
to his legacy which which arguably is what most presidents care for um it's i think it's just a
00:26:30.740
fallacy to suggest that again this this form of accountability is somehow making our country safer or
00:26:38.300
better or more unified or preventing this from happening in the future that that's nonsense
00:26:44.040
anybody making that argument i think it knows it's it's not really true um and so yeah i just
00:26:51.080
stand by the explanations i had yeah yeah um you did talk about how trump isn't necessarily legally
00:27:00.000
culpable for what happened but he might hold some moral responsibility and you would say that's the same
00:27:05.400
argument that you would make for people who are kind of ratcheting up or raising the temperature
00:27:11.360
when it came to antifa and blm violence that they shouldn't be legally culpable for that but that they
00:27:18.040
do contribute to raising the temperature correct yeah exactly i mean look i'll never forget this i'm just
00:27:25.180
randomly watching some i don't even know what news channel because it wasn't a mainstream one
00:27:29.480
but i'll never forget and it wasn't the chicago city mayor it was some chicago city official
00:27:34.860
and she was speaking to the public right right after these uh massive riots had burned down multiple
00:27:41.960
businesses and she says to them i know that you're oppressed i know how much systemic oppression you face
00:27:48.740
but don't burn down your communities i was like how do you not see the contradiction there
00:27:53.800
if you if you're telling people to believe that there's no hope that they're systemically oppressed
00:27:58.880
then how can you not expect them to lash out in the way that they have okay because you're lying to them
00:28:05.780
and so i mean i i and i see a parallel to january 6th i mean i put out a whole long podcast on this on
00:28:11.840
my podcast um you know the truth about january 6th and i lay out an excruciating legal detail
00:28:17.680
and and and i reasoned through it for everybody on on why on why this hyping up of january 6th was
00:28:24.800
always just a lie fundamental lie not not not even i don't even touch the allegations about election
00:28:32.080
fraud or that trump actually won i didn't even touch that i'm just talking about the legal or what i
00:28:37.440
would call an illegal process taking place on january 6th and lying to people about about how this was
00:28:42.880
going to fix all of their problems and that otherwise if it didn't get fixed that there that there
00:28:47.460
would lose their country that they would be hopeless that they would just be that they would
00:28:51.820
they would never have any hope again i mean if you tell people that if you amp up the the rhetoric to
00:28:56.920
such a huge extent yeah i think i think that we can rightfully say there's some moral responsibility but
00:29:03.320
like you know moral responsibility does not mean legal responsibility it doesn't mean stepping down from
00:29:09.200
your office responsibility yeah it means that we we simply acknowledge it just just just to be truthful
00:29:15.900
and i think we do have to be careful too because i have seen this trend in particular on the left
00:29:30.060
with saying anything that they disagree with is inciting violence or anything even if they're just
00:29:36.880
talking about being morally culpable for violence i think that's also very dangerous that
00:29:41.040
we also have to be careful that not every bit of passionate speech not every discussion about
00:29:48.420
injustice or unfairness can immediately and automatically be tied to violence that ensues i
00:29:55.340
think sometimes it can be certainly when it's misinformation but we also have to be free and
00:30:00.840
gracious enough to say that okay we and people on the other side of the aisle that they can't always be
00:30:06.820
held morally liable just because they gave a passionate speech that some people took the
00:30:11.540
wrong way and took to violent extremes right like i get worried about holding people's speech to the
00:30:17.400
standard of oh if it's too passionate it might incite violence or if i disagree with it it might incite
00:30:22.680
violence i don't think that's a good place to be either no i think we accuse them of raising the
00:30:28.000
temperature too high and and that they they don't they don't get to act surprised when when people act out
00:30:32.960
i mean you know again there's there's i'm not calling for some action against somebody because
00:30:37.040
in the end this is protected political speech whether trump did it or whether a chicago city
00:30:41.300
official did it um but it doesn't mean that we can't again there's a difference between rhetorical
00:30:47.340
blame and and legal blame and taking action against people and we have to draw that line in the sand very
00:30:53.820
clearly so i mean i i think we're agreeing but look i i mean i i've seen too much from the left i mean i
00:31:00.540
there if it went for when cops are being assassinated and murdered because of blm rhetoric
00:31:06.760
like you you cannot tell me that there's no connection yeah okay and again it doesn't mean
00:31:14.000
that i'm searching for somebody to be to be legit you know you know in a co in a very concrete way
00:31:20.780
culpable yeah um but from a but there is let's call it rhetorical blame if you don't want to call it
00:31:27.120
moral blame but i you know yeah we might be splitting hairs there no i think that right
00:31:32.400
and i think that we have to acknowledge it yeah well we have to also be discerning enough which
00:31:36.660
discernment is not really characteristic of a lot of political dialogue right now we have to be
00:31:40.820
discerning enough to take it on a case-by-case basis the guy who shot up a baseball field and shot
00:31:46.520
republicans he said that he did it because bernie sanders said that you know republicans were kicking
00:31:51.500
people off their health care even if we disagree with bernie sanders like we're not going to lay
00:31:55.840
that blame on bernie sanders's feet someone i saw you know lila rose pro-life advocate said
00:32:01.260
something very obvious the other day abortion is violence while an abortionist came back at her
00:32:06.900
with a blue check mark saying this is domestic terrorism obviously that's stupid and so we also
00:32:13.340
have to take things by a case-by-case basis that okay sometimes yes this did intentionally raise the
00:32:18.140
temperature that may have led to that sometimes someone was just telling the truth or someone just said
00:32:23.240
something and someone took it the wrong way and took it too far we have to be discerning as well
00:32:28.980
when it comes to judging people's speech we do and the reason why the january 6 issue was a little bit
00:32:36.140
worse than usual was because yeah it was centered on taking taking action now he didn't nobody defined
00:32:42.700
what that action was except to say you got to go fight and you got to be strong and you got to make
00:32:47.380
those cowards in congress do what do what we want them to do referring to people like me who refuse
00:32:52.900
to object because it's a stupid illegal process okay so when you tell people to go somewhere at a very
00:32:59.080
specific time on a specific day and and yell at specific people uh that's you you're you're you're
00:33:06.280
getting pretty specific is my point yeah uh and so again doesn't reach the levels of incitement that
00:33:12.920
would be necessary to to call for some kind of legal action still doesn't
00:33:17.380
but um let's at least acknowledge that that's a really stupid thing to do and i think that's all
00:33:23.040
we're asking for yeah okay last thing i want to quickly talk to you about you talk a lot about
00:33:28.220
uh immigration immigration legislation this has been a big priority of joe biden going into his
00:33:34.180
presidency saying that he is going to um i think ensure citizenship for 11 million uh for 11 million
00:33:42.340
illegal immigrants he's going to stop funding for the border wall there's also apparently a
00:33:47.320
migrant caravan in honduras uh on the move towards the united states um what can we anticipate what
00:33:54.320
should we be concerned about when it comes to immigration policy in a democratic white house
00:33:59.260
and a democratic congress they've radicalized their immigration policy it is it is not even
00:34:07.400
close to what it was under obama um you know i remember the left being mad at obama for they called
00:34:12.720
the the the deporter in chief because he deported so many people um but they didn't take uh they
00:34:19.600
didn't take border security all that seriously and some things happened in the courts with the
00:34:24.740
flores settlement that actually perpetuated the the massive influx the illegal immigrants under obama it
00:34:30.820
wasn't necessarily obama policy um it was just it was more like their lack of action like they just
00:34:36.360
they just didn't really care to fix some of the things that happened under their watch
00:34:40.280
um but now we have an administration that actually wants to take actual action to make it easier for
00:34:46.180
people to cross the border um and and then reward them for doing so i mean this is what's so infuriating
00:34:53.800
um people feel like there's a there's a there's a real sense of injustice here especially if you're a
00:34:59.820
legal immigrant yeah i think all of us i mean i have family who is legal immigrant my stepmother is a
00:35:05.320
legal immigrant um which means i have a lot of family that are legal immigrants um we i think we
00:35:11.260
all know somebody who's a legal immigrant and has gone through that process and thinks it's really
00:35:15.960
cool and i think it's really they're really proud to have gone through that process and become an
00:35:20.840
american citizen and this is such a slap in the face to them because this then this really angers them
00:35:26.360
i mean go talk to some legal immigrants and this is such they get really mad about this because they
00:35:31.380
work so hard and they did it the right way and there's a sense of pride with that and so now
00:35:35.500
you're telling them that well these people did the wrong way they get to cut in line and just have
00:35:38.840
their citizenship because you know because we just feel like it but mostly because let's be honest
00:35:42.780
democrats want their votes um because and don't go talk to those illegal immigrants they don't
00:35:48.620
care about becoming citizens they want to work okay so they want work visas they're already here
00:35:54.760
most of them have not committed any other crime except being here illegally they just want to work or
00:35:59.180
there's an interesting conversation to be had about that but there is no conversation to be had
00:36:03.620
about about a path to citizenship for for people who cut the line that that is off the table um i would
00:36:09.620
say the good news is the if you want to get specifics and you know maybe talk political strategy here
00:36:14.920
you know you're going to start out with um with uh work visas basically permanent residency and i think in
00:36:22.900
like many many years from now it would be eligible for a path to citizenship well many years from now
00:36:29.160
hopefully we take back uh congress and the presidency and we can reverse those laws and you know we
00:36:34.940
won't have any issues here with with what i'm talking about um but the other thing i'm really worried
00:36:40.420
about biden doing it's actually not so much defunding the wall that's a more symbolic than it is
00:36:45.360
substantive the real issue i'll have with the biden administration is if they stop the remain in
00:36:50.720
mexico policy program otherwise called the migrant protection protocols to put simply this means
00:36:56.680
when when illegal immigrants are just turning themselves into border patrol across the border
00:37:01.840
in the past one of the reasons we had such a problem was because we didn't know what to do
00:37:05.580
with them and we just kind of let them go right and hope that they show up for a court date well
00:37:09.240
that's a pretty big incentive to just come across and just turn yourself in you don't even need you
00:37:13.060
don't even need to escape border patrol just turn yourself in they're just going to let you go
00:37:16.080
um well the trump administration did a pretty good job reversing that um process but also
00:37:21.940
working with mexico to put at least a portion of the daily uh crossers back to mexico city and so
00:37:29.100
now you have a huge disincentive because if you're if you're illegally crossing you're like ah well
00:37:33.260
there's a chance i might actually just be put right back in mexico city and that would kind of suck
00:37:37.760
so i'm just not going to try um that's what happened then it had huge effects uh biden reverses that
00:37:45.380
and reverses some of the protocols that we've worked so hard to put in place to stop the catch and
00:37:49.420
release program that is what's attracting this honduran caravan because they're like hey doors
00:37:55.220
are open and free health care what a what a deal yeah ultimately i mean you know this but i think
00:38:00.760
some people who feel caught in the middle of this because what they hear is republicans you know kids
00:38:06.460
in cages splitting families apart inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants at the border or democrats and
00:38:13.340
compassion and love and acceptance and things like that ultimately a country has to have a border in
00:38:20.280
order to retain its sovereignty and therefore in order to execute its laws to execute justice and
00:38:25.940
protect its citizens that's why it is compassionate to compassionately but strongly enforce your borders
00:38:32.080
and that doesn't mean should not mean inhumane treatment of people who are trying to cross people
00:38:36.920
who are filing for asylum and so there needs to be some understanding there that yes we have to
00:38:44.060
enforce our borders we have to and we have citizenship has to mean something in order for a country and its
00:38:50.060
laws to actually mean something and it's for the protection of both uh people who were born here and
00:38:56.640
people who were not born here who are now citizens it is the compassionate thing to do while also
00:39:01.540
treating the people who are trying to get here as humanely as possible do you think that balance is
00:39:07.040
possible is that argument effective at all i do think that argument's effective and kind of going back to
00:39:13.780
what we were talking about um you know semi-arguing over whether republicans even try to make these
00:39:20.540
arguments on the on the same grounds that democrats do mainly the moral grounds the compassionate
00:39:25.600
argument and you're absolutely right you need to you need to you need to directly confront
00:39:30.680
confront their accusations right and their accusation in this case being that you're you're not compassionate
00:39:36.120
because you don't want to just give stuff to people who want it and i think frankly just reframing
00:39:42.640
what they just said is is the best way to debate them and it kind of like what kind of like i just said it
00:39:47.560
let me get this straight i'm not compassionate because when somebody like comes across illegally into my
00:39:53.080
country i don't want them to just just get stuff from my taxpayer dollars that's why i'm not
00:39:59.440
compassionate well if you're so compassionate then okay are you paying for their hotel room
00:40:03.200
while they wait their asylum you know what the weather asylum process i mean do you i mean what's
00:40:08.580
your limiting principle do you want to just allow because because is a hundred thousand a month okay
00:40:13.660
well why not five hundred thousand i mean arguably there's millions of them who who have a worse
00:40:19.200
life than here so do we just let them cross illegally or i guess let them cross indefinitely
00:40:25.400
until there's a there's a there's a complete balancing of everybody like is that the goal
00:40:30.300
and again where's the limiting principle how is this sustainable you know the best way to debate
00:40:34.600
this stuff is is to really just go through it from a very logical perspective and address this idea
00:40:39.660
of compassion directly and debunk it it's really not that hard to debunk and um and as you put it we
00:40:47.100
can win this argument by simply saying look we have a sovereign right as a country to control our borders
00:40:52.400
the vast majority of americans fundamentally agree with this okay so we don't have to actually make
00:40:57.400
the argument much further than that um but we have to stop using silly arguments if we're going to go
00:41:03.500
back to the border crisis and wow it's like it's like like two years ago all over again then you know
00:41:09.160
we what we what was the wrong way to make the argument was was demonizing those immigrants coming
00:41:14.580
across because because that's where we actually lose people um and that did happen too often in right-wing
00:41:20.440
rhetoric you've got to use the arguments that we just laid out and the family and the family
00:41:24.400
separation thing which i always disagreed with you know under jeff sessions i think really hurt as well
00:41:31.640
because like you said um what people saw is just inhumane treatment whether or not you believe people
00:41:37.660
should be flooding the border illegally which i obviously don't believe that um i mean that's that's
00:41:43.600
a problem so that when the waters get muddy it's hard for people i think to think clearly about okay
00:41:48.820
what's the importance of borders and i think what you said about a limiting principle is really effective
00:41:53.740
asking people before you even start engaging in the argument well do you think that we have any right
00:41:59.620
to stop anyone from coming in the country or does everyone get to come in like you said is there a
00:42:05.420
number limit is there a past crime committed that we should look at is there ever a reason why we
00:42:10.340
shouldn't let someone in the country and most people don't think that we should let every single
00:42:14.820
person who wants to come in the country come in they actually do believe in a limiting principle
00:42:19.060
maybe they just haven't thought about what that is so that gives us a lot of food for thought and i
00:42:23.840
appreciate that okay can you give us any optimism and hope there's a lot of scared people there's a lot
00:42:29.420
of worried people about a democratic controlled congress democrat in the white house who just feel
00:42:35.000
this wave of hostility coming towards conservatives conservative christians they're scared of the
00:42:39.740
legislation they're scared for their protection of their first and second amendment rights um i don't
00:42:45.260
know if you have any optimism but can you can you give us some a little bit of hope
00:42:50.220
it's gonna be hard um but look these the majorities they have are razor thin um you know the senate's
00:42:59.480
50 50 it's just that kamal is the tiebreaker it's a razor thin majority that there's there's there are
00:43:04.840
still some moderate democrats that are pretty nervous about about voting for some of these
00:43:09.440
really radical policies uh so maybe that's a bulwark against some of their more radical intentions
00:43:16.220
um uh more optimism than that let me just repeat what i said before um you know the we we're not losing
00:43:28.300
as bad in many ways as many people think we are again compare this to like when obama took over in
00:43:35.940
2008 where first of all they had much larger majorities okay they could really do whatever
00:43:41.040
they wanted um i don't remember ali stuckey's podcast back in 2008 i don't remember ben shapiro's
00:43:49.660
podcast back in 2008 i don't remember dennis prager i'm sure i mean obviously he was around but like
00:43:54.460
it was not they were not big influencers that are really making an impact and really persuading
00:44:00.340
people back then um we we truly were lost and we were just getting angrier and angrier and um we
00:44:09.040
that can be effective maybe um like i'm not because it gets people involved but again fighting needs to
00:44:17.120
means needs to mean persuading people and we've got a lot more interesting people smart people persuading
00:44:24.020
new voters every single day than we ever used to yeah uh we can win if we if we learn the right
00:44:31.160
lessons from the last four years we can easily win back the house in two years maybe even the the senate
00:44:36.360
um i'd have to analyze the the politics of that but i think we can definitely win back the house
00:44:41.580
and then boom we've got a pretty serious bulwark against the biden presidency and i i still think we
00:44:47.500
could probably win in four years too because they're they're already proving that they want to really
00:44:51.840
overstep the will of the american people they really want to trample all over it biden doesn't
00:44:56.520
understand why he was elected he was elected because people didn't like the president's tweets
00:45:00.320
and comments and general demeanor not because they didn't like the president's uh policy platform
00:45:05.260
okay and um now we're gonna and i told i told voters over and over again you've got to vote for
00:45:10.960
donald trump because trust me the democrats mean what they say and i encourage you to listen to
00:45:15.380
everything the democrats are saying um and i don't think enough people believe me or my message
00:45:19.900
didn't get to enough people because they still voted the way they voted yeah um well in texas
00:45:24.860
trump did win so maybe i did my part here in texas but yeah the uh um but you know i i think now people
00:45:32.740
are going to see that policy agenda right in front of their face um and uh they're going to realize that
00:45:38.240
uh you know democrats mean what they say and i think we can win again yeah and um i hope that's
00:45:44.680
enough optimism i mean i could try harder if you want no i i encourage people to based on what you
00:45:52.060
said to continue to pay attention because i think even people who voted for trump are like the media
00:45:58.340
i don't know if it was intentional or not but wore us out with trump drama and political drama most of us
00:46:04.860
most people didn't pay nearly as much attention to the news and to politics as they have for the past
00:46:10.460
four years and a lot of people are just tired of it i think that's one reason why biden won
00:46:14.620
is because people are tired of paying attention and they feel like if biden's in the office this
00:46:19.180
great moderate which we know that policy-wise he's not then they don't have to pay attention anymore
00:46:23.660
and that's what they're betting on that's what they're betting on apathy and ignorance by people
00:46:28.680
who they know disagree with these policies and so my encouragement to people is don't be you don't
00:46:33.800
have to be obsessed with politics you don't have to spend all day on twitter i certainly don't
00:46:37.680
um you don't have to be constantly inundated with this stuff but pay attention pay attention to the
00:46:42.620
executive orders pay attention to the bills that are getting passed pay attention to the court cases
00:46:47.560
this is not the time for conservatives to look away make sure you understand what's going on not
00:46:52.460
just in your country but also in your state and in your area um because if we don't pay attention then
00:46:58.980
um it's very easy to believe their rhetoric just like obama did that everything is going great even
00:47:04.880
when it wasn't do you agree yeah yeah absolutely you know pay attention and and um and and let's
00:47:14.780
absorb the right information you know and and take take these arguments that you know i i try to always
00:47:21.820
present people with the facts and the arguments so they can use those arguments to uh to win over
00:47:27.360
their peers you know that that's that's my goal um and i think if uh the more we see it that way that
00:47:34.160
the better off we'll be in a couple years but uh not not all is lost like america will survive it's it's
00:47:40.220
very hard luckily because of our constitution and because the nature of our checks and balances in our
00:47:45.060
republic uh it's it's it is hard to seriously infringe on the rights of americans um and uh that should
00:47:54.360
give us some i think comfort some some comfort but not enough comfort to get too comfortable
00:48:00.480
and to be complacent and stop paying attention uh thank you so much you told me to be optimistic
00:48:05.120
yeah you did you did okay i'll give you i'll give you a b on optimism but thank you thank you so much
00:48:12.680
for taking the time to talk to me i know a lot of people will appreciate your insight uh thanks for what
00:48:18.280
you do okay guys just a quick outro after that conversation i always want to leave you with a
00:48:34.520
reminder especially at the end of the week that the reason that we have hope is because jesus is king
00:48:40.260
no matter who is in the white house no matter who is in congress yes these things matter but
00:48:45.780
ultimately the government is on jesus's shoulders and he is the one who is in charge he is sovereign
00:48:51.700
over all the bible says that he changes times and seasons daniel 2 says and he raises up kings and he
00:48:58.780
brings them down so he's in charge of all of it he's not surprised he's not thrown back he know he knows
00:49:04.480
what every single day of our life holds he knows what this next year holds and he's got us like he's got
00:49:10.160
his people he's got his flock he's got his church and our responsibility is to make the best
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use of our time as the bible also said because uh says because the days are evil the days are
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always evil in comparison to the future glory that we are going towards and so uh focus on the
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obedience that's right in front of you god might call you to bigger spheres of influence as we talked
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about yesterday we went through five very practical tips of what we can do when you're facing any kind of
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spiritual or political opposition uh the the tangible steps that we can take and the words that
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we can speak in the midst of that and the peace that we can have in the midst of that but always
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without a doubt he's calling us to immediate obedience and the things that we think and the
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things that we say and in the things that we do and one thing we always know that we can do is we
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can love god with all of our hearts mind souls and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves and
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remember this is something i have to remember which is really hard for me is that we are called time
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and again in the bible not to worry and not to be anxious do not fear but instead to be courageous
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knowing that it is the god of the universe fighting our battles for us um and i'm not talking about just
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the you know i'm not talking about the united states i'm talking about the people of god i'm talking
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about the universal church um that we can rest assured that he's got us that he's going to keep us
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that his gospel is going to be advanced and his will is going to be done job 42 says that his will
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cannot be thwarted so we can trust in that we can rejoice in that christians have gone through a lot
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of hard things throughout church history and yet the bible tells us time and again rejoice in the lord
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again i will say rejoice let your reasonableness be made known to everyone as philippians 4 says so let us
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rejoice let us be glad let us be hopeful let us look toward heaven let us stir one another up toward
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love and good works as hebrews 10 says uh let us hold fast to truth and let us encourage one another
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um and let us be joyful we have every reason to be glad because we've got the gospel and we've got
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the lord of the universe who promises to care for us and promises to claim victory over all darkness
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one day and we look forward to that day just as much as we ever do so i want to end with that we
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will be back here on monday have a great weekend spend time with your family go to church if you can
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go to church uh love the lord love your neighbor and uh be glad this is our father's world and uh there
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is always reason for us to be happy and rejoice over that all right see you guys on monday