ED ROLLINS SAYS TRUMP OWNS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND IF HE RUNS, HE WINS
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Summary
Ed Rollins is a political strategist, strategist, political scientist, historian, and former presidential candidate. He served as the Chief Strategist and Strategist for Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign and chaired the Reagan campaign when Reagan won the electoral votes of 49 states in a historic landslide.
Transcript
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Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs, and welcome to The Great America Show. Thanks for being with us.
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And I want to thank President Trump again for being our guest here on The Great America Show yesterday.
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The president was, as always, terrific. The president is clearly rested, he's strong,
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and bringing much-needed leadership to the Republican Party, still the America First Party,
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and certainly still the Trump MAGA Party. Much, I'm sure, to the great discomfort and frustration
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of some, such as Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and the liberal rhino wing of the entire GOP.
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As for the Democrats, they're as confused and out of touch with the American people as ever.
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They're simply delusional, whether it's on Capitol Hill or Joe Biden, the puppet president.
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How will it all work out this November? No one, no one is more qualified to answer that question,
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to analyze the American political scene than our good friend, Ed Rollins. He is the political savant,
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preeminent political strategist, political scientist, historian, and no one has led more campaigns than
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Ed. Ed famously chaired the Ronald Reagan 1984 campaign when Reagan won the electoral votes of
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49 states in a historic landslide. A truly great American.
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Ed Rollins, it is so great to have you with us on The Great America Show. Welcome, my friend.
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My pleasure, Lou. It's nice to be back with you. We miss you.
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Well, there's no reason for that. You can listen to me every day on The Great America Show.
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It's a little different vehicle, but it's a great vehicle. I love this podcasting, man.
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It's still the same smart analyst by you. That's what counts.
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Well, thank you so much. Ed, let's get to the body politic and the times we live in.
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Well, first, the elections, the president is doing great. I mean, he has something like a 90s
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plus record of wins on endorsements and a handful of losses. What I get a kick out of anybody else,
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they would be calling him Nostradamus. But if it's Donald Trump, they're saying, well,
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My thoughts are he is the most significant ex-president in his own party and in the country
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of anyone in my 50 years in active politics. And I worked for Reagan. I worked for Nixon.
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Even Reagan, as popular as he was when he was done, he was done. I mean, he went out and
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built his library and those kinds of things. But Trump is not. Trump is today owns this party.
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Uh, the big question now is, does he want to run for another shot? And if he does, then obviously
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he's going to be the nominee and he'll be a very significant factor, uh, in anybody else's race.
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Uh, you know, he he's, he's out, he's raising tons of money. Uh, and it's just a question of
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what does he want to do? Nobody else can do anything significant until he decides what he wants to do.
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And he can decide it as late as he wants. Uh, uh, you know, the way the system is set up,
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you're not, you're not going to beat him in primaries. Uh, uh, you're not going to beat
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him on primaries. You may be some of the candidates that are out there running for other things as a
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couple yesterday. And I think, I think where he's not been as successful as, you know, a governor has
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a lot of built-in resources and, and like yesterday in, in, uh, in Georgia, I mean, the governor there was
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basically, uh, someone that Trump had serious problems with over the, over the election. But the
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reality is the governor was able to beat a not very good candidate and why, why Trump picked
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Purdue to be his candidate is beyond me because he wasn't a very good candidate when he ran for the
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Senate. Because his name wasn't Brian Kemp, I believe. Well, I think that may be, I think that
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may be, but at the end of the day here, the game's going to be the same again. I mean, we've got the
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key, the key States. Uh, we've had two presidential races back to back in which literally by less than
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100,000 votes in both of them, uh, 100,000 votes combined in both of them, uh, Trump won
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beat Hillary and came back next time. And, and, you know, the official report is that he lost by 40,
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41,000 votes. That's probably going to be the same playing field again. Uh, uh, the difference is that
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Biden runs for reelection. He's a very, as we said often on your TV show, he was a very weak candidate
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who neither of us thought could win. Uh, and he probably wouldn't have won if it wasn't for
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COVID and all the rest of it. Uh, but the reality is he's people have got to see him up close. Uh,
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the, the expectations, which are low, uh, have been exceeded. Uh, he's a record low and approval
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rating for a president. Uh, he's got nothing but problems ahead. He's bought the same old team back
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from the Obama days, uh, uh, players by name and number that played before. Uh, and I think to a
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certain extent, their view of where this country should go is so far to the left of where the
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country is deserves. It should be, uh, that my sense is that if Trump gets in this or any other
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Republican who ends up being the nominee, if for some reason, Trump doesn't run, uh, then,
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then I think, I think Biden himself will have a very difficult time getting reelected.
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There's a fascinating dynamics at work as you're, as you're saying, uh, amongst them, by the way,
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uh, is your own involvement in a new pack that's raised a few eyebrows. Tell us about this ready
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for Ron pack, uh, that you're heading up along with Lillian Rodriguez-Maz of, uh, Florida. Uh,
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she was quoted saying, uh, we're not concerned whether or not Trump is going to run. Uh,
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what are we to make of that? Well, first of all, it was a big mistake. And I chastised her big time
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yesterday. Our, our whole drill and, and, and my comments are that it's, it's, it's Trump to make
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his choice. If Trump wants to run. And as I just said, he can do it as late as he wants. Uh, uh,
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he's, I supported him all through his presidency and we'll support him again if he's the nominee
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of the party. Uh, she's a young girl who basically, and part of my intention, uh, and putting this
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together was to have some young people in here. She's a Floridian and she's, this is her first game.
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Um, and, uh, but she doesn't, she doesn't speak for the, for those that are going to be supported.
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The vehicle is, uh, there's a lot of things you have to do to get ready for presidential. Um, and,
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and we did a lot of this for Trump, uh, before he ran five years ago, uh, before you get a campaign
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up and particularly when you're, when you're in a governor, you got to run for reelection. Uh, you
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know, you're, you're out doing the things you have to do to get reelected and you can't be out
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saying, I'm reelect me. I'm going to run for president six months later. So they're, they're,
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there's a lot of people have come forth and said, if I can't have Trump, I want DeSantis. A lot of
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people will say, I want DeSantis and we're trying to give them a vehicle where they can, uh, donate
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some money, do some things, get, get, feel like they're part of the process. But I make it very
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clear again. And I've said this, I said this in the announcement, uh, this fact, if Trump wants to
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run, uh, no one's going to beat him in our party. Uh, you can take a shot at him, but it's not going to
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Mike Pence isn't going to beat him. No one else is going to beat him. And I think to a certain
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extent, uh, uh, he'll, he'll, he'll romp through a primary process. Uh, the party is his, I've never
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seen an ex president have the control that he has. I worked for Ronald Reagan was very popular
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president. Uh, Ronald Reagan, when he was out of office, went and built his library and wasn't a
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part of part of the political process. Uh, and Trump has decided he wants to be active and he is,
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has been active and, and, uh, people still turn out for his rallies and he's raised money,
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like record numbers still as an ex president. So until he decides everything else is kind of on
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hold. And if, if he does decide to run, will your pack, will you turn the money over to, uh,
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we will give him, we'll give him all the vehicles that we, we, uh, pick, we've gone to the FEC, uh,
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to get permission to do that because you can't do that at this point in time. And that's certainly
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our intent. If he, if he, if he's wants to run, as I said, this is a great America pack,
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which I've run for the last four years with a Trump pack. Uh, and this is kind of, this is kind
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of a whole, uh, a placeholder in the sense of, you know, you need to, there are people who don't
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live in Florida who want to be active in, in, in a conservative campaign. And again, I think he
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doesn't want to announce at this point in time because it then limits how much money he can
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raise and where he can go and what he has to do. He then becomes a, so, but I think certainly by the
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midterms, uh, uh, and depending on what happens there, that he needs to get in the game and march
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forward. I mean, he is in the game, but I mean, he needs to announce what his intentions are and no
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one else, no one else can play. I mean, they can all get out and talk about it. You can have Pompeo
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and you can have tents and all the rest of them, but no one's going to be viable.
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And, uh, nowhere, uh, is there anyone who can, uh, hold a candle to Ed Rollins as political
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savant and the number of campaigns that you've run participated in over the years. Uh, this is
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a different kind of feel to it right now, uh, because of what you talked about. President Trump
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is such a dominant force, uh, being, uh, a former president or as of right now, and the party
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is resisting him. The establishment party is resisting him. His own vice president, uh, is
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behaving as if he were at the top of the ticket, uh, for, for the 2016 campaign and is a big time
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draw. Uh, Mike Pompeo, who is diffident and obtuse with his language, uh, and somewhat meddlesome
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in, uh, the race with, uh, uh, in, uh, with Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania. Uh, and I want to turn
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to that in a minute, but I mean, these are people that are not grateful. They don't have
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a sense of proportion. They have no sense of apparently their own standing in the world.
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Well, that's all of the illusions that sometimes happens to people that get to ride around in
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big cars, limousines, and have fancy titles and sit in big offices for a couple of years.
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They think they earned it. There's only one guy who got votes for the Republicans. That was
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Donald Trump. Uh, the rest of them are all basically live off of reflected power. Uh,
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and you would think there would be more gratitude, but there's not, uh, but it doesn't matter to the
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public out there, to the Republican base. Uh, uh, he is, he is the Republican party today and
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anybody that tries to step up and get in his way is, is going to get rolled over. Uh, you know,
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again, you take situations like governors, uh, which is the couple, the three or four races that
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he's endorsed and lost, uh, he's gone up against pretty popular Republican governors and people
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look at governors in a little different way. So it's not, it's not a question of him being on
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the tickets and trying to help people. And that's what's clearly the case yesterday with, uh, in
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Georgia. Yeah. And we've got a lot of primaries coming up. As I said, his, have you ever seen
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any, uh, you know, president or otherwise, I've never seen anyone come up with a record on his
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endorsements, uh, and victories that he's got the highest winning percentage in history. Don't you
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think? Absolutely. Well, first of all, let me, let me just tell you something. I was Ronald Reagan's
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political director, uh, in the white house and ran his reelection campaign. Uh, Reagan never endorsed
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a candidate. Uh, he did not want to participate in primaries and art. And part of that reason was,
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uh, there was a lot of, when he ran against Ford, he was, he, he, he, and Ford was the incumbent
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president. Uh, he wanted to have, he felt it's important to let people go out and choose
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their, their, their players. In Trump's case, Trump wants to pick people that he, you know,
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he sees it almost as a parliamentary type thing. You'd be a part of my team and you, I support
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you. Uh, he's, he's swamped everybody in the fundraising. I mean, he has got, he's more
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powerful than anybody's ever played in the Republican party in a long, long time, if ever. So my
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sense is, uh, you know, you're, you're whistling by the graveyard and whether you like them or don't
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like them. And there's some few people who don't, and certainly the, if there's any, if there's any
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questioning, it's whether he's stayed too long trying to argue the election, as opposed to saying,
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okay, uh, there was, there was mischief that went on, but let's move forward. Uh, we're going to deal
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with it next time. And I'm going to talk about the great issues that I, that I, that I had
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obviously have been altered by, by Biden. I mean, I think the thing that I worry about is,
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um, and the media certainly is not a friend of ours, except for maybe Fox and a few others, but, uh,
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the end of the day is, is, is legacy, uh, which obviously is, is magnificent when you compare it to
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the Biden legacy, uh, on all, whether it's the economy or whether it's on the immigration issues
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or whether it's foreign policy, uh, uh, uh, you know, he should be getting applauded every single
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day, but he doesn't, uh, to those of us that know what he did, uh, you know, we applauded, but, uh,
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but, you know, he's, he's gotta, he's gotta go remind people of that. And I think the certain,
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you know, I mean, I think, you know, he's a tough guy who wants to basically grind down people that
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stood up to him. And I think the reality here is that he needs to go out and be a salesman,
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put a salesman hat back on. Here's what I did. And here's what they're not doing.
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And that's what they're trying to undo. And that would do a great service to the country.
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Yeah. When listening to the president, uh, I talked with him yesterday when he said,
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and I'm not quoting, I'm paraphrasing when he said it is a very sad thing to be watching all of
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these American cargo aircraft coming back from Europe, bringing in baby formula just to feed our
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children. Uh, he was, he was emotional about that. It matters to him. Uh, you know, when,
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when we talk about the pain of these high prices, it's the gas pump. When we talk about what the
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working man and woman in this country is facing, uh, and their families every day under this, uh,
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this idiotic, uh, set of economic policies by this administration, uh, what is, what does
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president Biden do when I ask about it? He starts talking about the great transition. Uh, it's
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mindlessness. He's, he is simply remote, uh, unconnected, uh, and out of touch.
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Well, can you just imagine, I mean, finding a solution for COVID, which obviously Trump
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was critical in making happen. Absolutely. We have baby formula where mothers can't get
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formula to feed their children. The greatest nation in the world, basically it's, it's embarrassing
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and appalling. Uh, and, and, you know, they say, oh, we're going to get it worked out. It'll be
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another eight or 10 weeks. Well, how many babies are going to die or have their lives affected by
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that? Uh, that's something should have been priority. Number one, and he had slammed his fist
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on the desk and it said, get it done. And it would have got done. Uh, and I, and no excuses,
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the economy can't go along like this. We're doing record, we're still doing record spending, uh,
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and, and no one knows what we're spending. We just had one of the biggest scandals in my lifetime.
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I grew up in a Navy town, as you know, my father built nuclear submarines. We're now going to basically
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take brand new Navy ships. So supposedly the state of the art, uh, and anti-submarine anti-Soviet submarine,
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uh, uh, ships, and we're going to tear them apart because the system doesn't work. They're brand new
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boats, spent billions of dollars on that. You barely see a word on that. You ought to be taking
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the makers of those ships and just rake them over the coals. Uh, and, you know, I, I just feel we've
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lost control of the, of the spending, which is important. Uh, you know, we're not, we're not
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doing anything for the quality of life of people here. Uh, and I think to a certain extent we, we
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need moral leadership and, and, you know, we, we don't have any, and then the, the idea that
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the foreign front, we don't know what our strategy is in Ukraine. I mean, obviously we, we need to,
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we need to do what we can, but you know, every other day it's something new. Uh, the president going to
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Japan and North Korea on the edge there and talking about a 30 year old Taiwan policy that's
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we walked away from. I mean, to me, it's so embarrassing to watch an American president
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go up, make a statement, stumble through it. And then five seconds later, his staff turns out and
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says, no, no, no, he didn't mean to say that. Uh, uh, that was a mistake. That's, you know, I mean,
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it's, uh, as I said, I've worked for three presidents. That doesn't, that's not what you're
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supposed to do. And the staff doesn't get to run it. Staff gets to advise, uh, if you, if a president
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wants the advice, but this president every day, it's a stumble every day. It's, I mean, it's almost
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to an, I mean, he, you know, and he, even last night watching him come back, uh, you know, this
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tragic, tragic massacre in Texas, which obviously our hearts all ache. First thing he does is attack
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the NRA and basically doesn't do anything to provide, offer solutions or any of the rest of
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it. So, uh, he's, he's just not providing the leadership. And I, and I go back to the point
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of, you know, I think, I think this is a president that could be defeated in a heartbeat if the
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election were this week or next week, or even in, in, in November. Uh, but we've got three more
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years of this and two and a half more years of this, and it's just appalling and we need a powerful
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voice on the other side and it's not the Congress. And we've never seen, uh, we've never seen this
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level of disgust with where the country is headed. I mean, we're talking over 70% of the country says
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we're headed in the wrong direction. Now you're, you're the, the expert, the, the, the genius of
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strategy and tactics and politics and presidential politics in particular, but I don't know if you need
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to take another poll when you've got 70% of the country saying you're going in the wrong direction.
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Do you? No, you don't. You know, at the end of the day here in the, uh, we have too many polls,
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uh, the, the, the people know things aren't working. Uh, young people are so disgusted,
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you know, where, where are their, where are their role models for the future? Uh, uh, and, you know,
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we went through this terrible disaster with the COVID for the last couple of years, young people
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don't want to go back to work. I know people that own restaurants and other things here in New York,
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and I can't get it, can't get people to go to work. I don't want to go to work for enormous sums of
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money, uh, $25 an hour to wait on tables, uh, $50 an hour to cook in a kitchen. They don't want to do
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it. Uh, no, no, no, thanks. I'll get the government program. I'm going to sit home,
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play on my computer. Uh, and I think it's just tragic. Uh, so, you know, they get up there and
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they rattle off a bunch of statistics that don't mean anything. And I think the confidence of the
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young people, which is really what matters here is the next generation, uh, is really being, uh,
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diminished daily. And they watch the political squabbles go on. Uh, you turn on any of these cable TV
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shows and you and I've been on them for many, many years. It just, it's, it's all, it's all
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rhetoric. Uh, it's not, it's not any solutions. It's not any, any viable people that can change
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any of this because they don't have the guts to do that. So at least Donald Trump, you know,
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he got in there and basically made things happen. Uh, and I think someone like DeSantis and others
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who sort of are the same mode, uh, uh, obviously can do things similar. Well, let me, let me turn,
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if I may, to something that's, uh, well, two things that are very important. I think one is
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William Barr through his book and all of his press announced press engagements and promoting his book
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acknowledged that he knew Joe Biden was lying in the second and final debate of the presidential
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election in 2020. He also acknowledged that that Hunter's laptop from hell, that that laptop and its
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contents were proof of the Biden family corruption. And he chose not to say anything as the attorney
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general of the United States, as he heard a former vice president lying to the American people seeking
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their votes and knew he was corrupt and lying. Uh, and so, and so doing he intervened on behalf of
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Biden, William Barr, Trump's own attorney general is in my judgment. Uh, if you just consider his
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actions alone, responsible for a horrible cheating of, uh, the American people of a fair election and
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changing history and not for the good, your thoughts.
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I couldn't agree with you more. My, my, my sense is there's been such a failure, not only by someone
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like Barr, but by establishment institutions that we used to have great respect for the FBI can't
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function and won't function. Uh, the intelligence communities all over the place are just failing
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and failing miserably. Uh, you know, our, our, our military leadership, not our soldiers and our
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sailors, but our military leadership can't figure out what they're supposed to be doing. Uh, you know,
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and they're all getting their ready for their books when they're retired. And as I said, it goes back
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to, they drive around in big limos when they're in the office, they have big flags in their office. Uh,
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they have big offices, uh, and they don't do the job. And the job is basically what the president
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needs to have done to help them. Uh, and then the justice department to me, it's just absurd. It's just, uh,
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you know, we're now going on our second year. We're going on our third year on the, on the January
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6th, uh, you know, in about 48 hours, you could, you don't have to interview everybody and work
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the cameras and see the guys over the ringleaders there and do whatever you want to do to them.
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But, uh, at the end of the day here, we're going to go through, you know, the, the country's bored
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with this stuff. The country just wants to fix it, get it done.
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You know, and I'm afraid, I'm afraid you're right that they're bored when in point of fact,
00:22:28.300
right now, they should be tuned into what the Sussman trial, the Michael Sussman trial is
00:22:33.760
revealing. It revealed with, from the mouth of the, of the Robbie Mook, the campaign manager
00:22:41.020
in 2016 for Hillary Clinton, that she was the person responsible for ordering the Russian
00:22:47.680
hoax and for carrying it out with the democratic party, the national democratic national committee,
00:22:54.180
as well as her campaign in, in, in alliance with the deep state pervasive throughout the
00:23:01.800
federal government. You're talking about the justice department. The justice department is a
00:23:05.760
radicalized institution, uh, filled with Marxist Democrats pressing an agenda. And we have now the
00:23:13.220
deep state, the Democrat party, so-called, and the white house all aligned behind what are Marxist
00:23:21.220
principles. And they mean to destroy the, the very foundation of this country. Don't you think?
00:23:27.360
Absolutely. Couldn't agree with you more than they, you know, that they have a holier than thou attitude
00:23:34.380
that we're a law, uh, and they're not the law. The law, the law is what's written in the constitution
00:23:39.860
been passed by the Congress and upheld by the constitution and the Supreme court. Uh, they're
00:23:45.040
not, they're not fixing the laws. They're not basically imposing the laws. You know, we have a
00:23:49.800
breakdown and, you know, we've got district attorneys now who are running on, we're going to dismantle the
00:23:55.800
police. We're going to put people in jail and we don't have a bail system. I mean, I live in New York
00:24:01.660
city. Every other day I pick up, pick up something where, you know, Goldman Sachs guy writing to work
00:24:07.360
on in a, in a, and it's robbed at gunpoint and turns out the guy who robbed them is, is someone
00:24:13.480
with 25 arrests and never been in jail. I mean, we have a real breakdown in our judicial system.
00:24:20.060
So I said to my daughter who's going to Mexico next week, I said, I want you to be real careful,
00:24:23.820
uh, when you're down there. Cause there's a lot of, a lot of stuff that's going on down there.
00:24:27.440
She's dead. Can't be any more unsafe than New York city. Uh, you know, getting on the subway here is
00:24:33.120
a, is a real challenge. You know, that's a 26 year old young girl. Uh, and it's, it's just, you
00:24:38.480
know, we, we, the failure of Giuliani at the end of his career here, uh, should not diminish what he
00:24:45.860
did when he was mayor for eight years. And when he came in and cleaned the city up, we now have the
00:24:50.840
worst mayor in the history is going to run for Congress. De Blasio can't give up the public trough
00:24:57.440
he's going to run for congressional seat. Uh, even there, the most important city in the country,
00:25:02.220
one of the most important city, the worst mayor by far, uh, you know, it just, and the whole,
00:25:09.480
the whole premise is, you know, the bad guys get out and the good guys get punished. Uh,
00:25:15.620
and me and the good ordinary people go to work every day. They're getting robbed on the street.
00:25:19.900
They got to live, live in fear. And now you're going to see everybody saying, oh, because of this
00:25:24.560
terrible tragedy in, in Texas, which was a terrible tragedy, they're going to take everybody's
00:25:28.700
guns away. Uh, and you know, it's absurd. It's just not going to happen. And equally as important,
00:25:32.920
uh, if anything, uh, I've been more people going out and buying guns today and next month, uh, to
00:25:38.600
protect themselves, uh, certainly protect, protect their kids. Uh, so there's no breakdown in our
00:25:44.760
society. And it's just, uh, and again, uh, there's no leadership. There's no clarity, uh,
00:25:50.560
we're spending $40 billion to supply Ukraine, which is a country struggling, uh, in, in fighting for
00:25:58.520
democracy and we should help, but is there a plan? Uh, do we have a plan? Do they have a plan? Does
00:26:04.060
NATO have a plan? Uh, I don't see any, uh, and I think to a certain extent, uh, you know, they want
00:26:11.460
to talk about Putin being crazy and all the rest. It doesn't matter. Putin's a bad guy. What are our
00:26:16.800
plans for him for the future? Uh, so I get, I get frustrated. I want to, I just want to go through
00:26:25.920
something because I think you just said the words that are, that sum up our situation right now in
00:26:31.100
the United States of America. We are in the midst of a breakdown of society. I think you've said it
00:26:38.220
exactly right. We can't trust our government. We can't trust our institutions. We are facing forces
00:26:46.020
that our leadership can't even comprehend, let alone respond intelligently to through public
00:26:51.880
policy. What are no world is it going to take? Because we keep waiting for one election to the
00:26:58.620
next. We finally elected a president in 2016 by pure to me, uh, a pure adventure to bring in Donald
00:27:06.780
Trump, not a politician, a man who was very certain of his values and his purpose and carried them out.
00:27:12.840
And he was allowed to be overthrown by his own attorney general, by the deep state, by the
00:27:22.480
Democrat party, by changing election laws, all of that. But at the very bedrock bottom, the Republican
00:27:31.520
party is riven with a division that no one wants to acknowledge. No one talks about the liberal wing,
00:27:38.720
the left wing of the Republican party. They do about the democratic party, but the rhinos only 11
00:27:46.060
senators. And as you know, only 11 Republican senators voted against that $40 billion for Ukraine
00:27:54.080
money without purpose, without a target. And by the way, uh, the NATO nations, European nations have
00:28:02.860
only put up a fraction of that $40 billion and it's their problem, not ours. What are we to do?
00:28:11.180
You know, I, I, I, I've been getting worked up on this issue because obviously I spent a lot of time
00:28:16.580
watching this war and I, and I watched the president of Ukraine show great courage, but at the end of the
00:28:25.360
day here, uh, what is our plan? And I, I went back and I read Dwight Eisenhower's, uh, his farewell
00:28:33.280
speech. He talked about the military industrial complex and the fears of that. And that's where we
00:28:40.380
have become. We now produce weapons and sell weapons and that's the game. Uh, I go back to the point of,
00:28:48.000
of spending billions of dollars to destroy brand new ships, state of the art ships. Uh, this was the
00:28:54.900
ship that was going to be able to go out and find the Russian submarines, uh, supposedly the best
00:28:59.980
technological stuff in the world doesn't work. So we're going to tear them, scrap them, send them
00:29:05.080
home, uh, uh, send them to a junkyard. Billions of dollars and nobody cares. It's one little story
00:29:12.940
somewhere. Uh, and the problem we have today is, is probably too much clutter coming at people every
00:29:19.220
single day. You know, it's, uh, uh, uh, you know, used to be the nation would sit around and back in
00:29:23.960
our day, you know, you'd watch one of the news networks at six o'clock or six 30, and you'd sort
00:29:29.240
of know what the agenda of the, of the, at least the news media was and the Congress and what have
00:29:32.800
you. Now it's 24 hours a day. It's, uh, you know, hundreds of stations. It's, it's distorted stories.
00:29:39.100
Uh, uh, and you know, where do you find the truth? And what happens is people, young people
00:29:44.680
in particular find their own little niche and that's all that they want to look at. They don't
00:29:48.480
want to go beyond that. Uh, you know, I've read newspapers all my life, uh, and I've read all
00:29:53.900
kinds. I read the wall street journal. I read the Washington post and new York times. I want to know
00:29:58.880
the full story and I'm going to make my own judgments. Kids don't even read today. Uh, they,
00:30:03.980
they put their headphones on and they get, I want all the news I can hear in three seconds or 30
00:30:09.020
seconds, maybe five minutes. Uh, then I want to get back to playing war games and, and, you know,
00:30:14.300
it just, uh, uh, and we're now going to have a big debate on this tragedy in Texas, which is
00:30:22.020
outrageous. But even, even if you put the most severe law, this is a troubled kid. This is a kid
00:30:27.920
who obviously has now been killed justifiably, but at the end of the day, uh, the idea that you're
00:30:35.120
going to have some kind of red flag, uh, it's an 18 year old kid. He wasn't on record. Uh,
00:30:41.500
he's a poor kid who basically was harassed, uh, in school and drifting. And we're, we're
00:30:48.580
to decide. He probably had never shot the guns before. Uh, so he goes on, he buys two guns
00:30:53.480
and he goes into school cause he's just, and it kills 19 little kids. Now, you know, we
00:30:59.300
need to examine that. We need to, and the answer is not all to stick with everybody's guns, which
00:31:03.120
is what will be the Democrat strategy, uh, what's going on in the society that's creating
00:31:07.640
all this. Uh, and you know, it's every week there's something somewhere. So, yeah. And
00:31:13.700
by the way, public schools have to start taking responsibility as well. Uh, there is no reason
00:31:19.520
that his teachers didn't know what was going on with that kid. There is no reason that there
00:31:24.920
aren't resources within that school to give him mental, uh, at least make a mental, uh, assessment
00:31:31.760
of his state of, uh, of his state. Why in the world are we keep looking to take everybody's
00:31:38.520
guns away? What is the purpose of that? Uh, will we take out, you know, it, these are
00:31:43.800
tools, they're instruments. The fact is we've got deeply troubled children in this country
00:31:49.500
and they're growing up into deeply troubled adults, creating even more problems for a society
00:31:55.420
that acts indifferent, uh, to their, to their issues, their problems. We've got teachers
00:32:01.260
more interested in educating and indoctrinating children five to nine years of age about gender
00:32:08.960
choice, uh, and sex. This is madness. We're institutionalizing madness. And what do we expect
00:32:17.020
the result to be? And then we have an impaired president standing out, uh, blubbering nonsense
00:32:23.560
about guns when he should be talking about much deeper, much more profound issues, uh, which
00:32:31.260
he obviously can't comprehend, but you would think there would be someone in the white house
00:32:35.200
somewhere, uh, in the education department, uh, to who could deal with these complex issues
00:32:41.740
and mount a policy, but there is no policy. There is no response.
00:32:48.320
No, you're, you're absolutely right. And every day it gets worse. I mean, obviously every little
00:32:52.560
kid that's in the first or the fourth grade, it's going to wake up today and hear something
00:32:57.460
of the story and start having nightmares. Uh, and it's, it's, you know, I, I, I, again,
00:33:06.460
I, I look, I know you're a grandfather and love your kids. I love my daughter. Uh, I worry
00:33:14.420
about the world for them. And it's not, this great nation's been through lots of things in the past,
00:33:20.540
but we're more interested in renaming confederate generals, military bases than we are. How are
00:33:27.380
training our troops and what are we training our troops to do? And what is our other policies? Uh,
00:33:32.760
so, uh, I'm not overly encouraged, nor am I, uh, my good friend, nor am I, but you know what,
00:33:42.380
we're going to press ahead and we're going to prevail somehow, some way. I want, one of the ways is our
00:33:48.620
political choices that we'll be making this year, the midterms, give us, give us your, uh, outlook
00:33:54.880
on the midterms and what will be the result. Uh, we talked about most of the country, the vast
00:34:01.740
majority of the country thinks we're on the, going on the wrong direction. How will that reflect in
00:34:06.460
the midterms? Do you think? Well, mid midterms are always kind of a, uh, of a change agent and,
00:34:11.820
and, uh, historically the president's power party almost always loses seats, uh, uh, with one or two
00:34:19.180
exceptions in modern times, uh, we will take back the house. There's no ifs, ands, or, or bet that's
00:34:26.340
not going to happen. Uh, the Senate's going to be close. We can certainly win that back. What I worry
00:34:31.640
about is what are we going to do with it when we get it? Uh, what is our agenda? Uh, what are we going
00:34:37.700
to talk about? Uh, you know, our agenda for the last two years has been, you know, sort of stop
00:34:43.260
Biden and Biden's programs, but what are we going to do? Uh, and that's the key thing that the party
00:34:49.980
that finds the answers here, and certainly the Democrats can't find them. Their answers spend
00:34:55.540
more money on whatever, uh, our answers don't spend any money and don't do anything. Uh, that's not a
00:35:00.960
good agenda. Uh, and I, and I, and so I think to a certain extent, uh, Senate, Senate's going to be,
00:35:07.680
uh, there's five or six seats that are going to matter. Uh, we have to win that Georgia seat with
00:35:13.580
Herschel Walker last night. We have to win the Pennsylvania seat once that our candidate is
00:35:18.040
decided there, uh, we have to not lose any of our incumbents. We have to win in Nevada with the young
00:35:25.620
Laxalt, uh, former attorney general, grandson of the great Senator who was Reagan's chairman.
00:35:30.960
Uh, fall Laxalt, uh, but it's, it's going to come down again, either, either way. If we win the
00:35:37.940
house, it may, maybe we have a 10 or 15 seat margin, uh, which means you've got to play lowest
00:35:43.700
common denominator. The Senate, as it is today, any, any member of the Senate can be king. Uh, uh,
00:35:51.580
you need, you need to get some numbers here where you can really move some people. And even if you
00:35:56.660
lose one or two, uh, but it's not a question of going in and changing as the, the, the filibuster
00:36:02.620
rule and all the things that Democrats talk about, uh, uh, I, I just say, thank goodness for Joe
00:36:08.580
Manchin is, is what would be the difference between the house and Senate if it's all majority vote,
00:36:13.400
uh, uh, you know, and I just think as a, as a political scientist, as someone that studied
00:36:18.420
the presidency and taught about the presidency for decades, uh, I don't know when the presidency
00:36:23.520
works anymore. I don't, I don't know if our basic fundamental system of government works
00:36:28.080
unless we get a real person in there who really wants to lead, who has an agenda. Uh, he used to
00:36:34.800
be in the country, uh, governors, uh, a lot of the Southern governors in particular, there's a couple
00:36:39.360
of them left, only got one term. So in four years, you had to be decide what you were. Were you going
00:36:45.580
to be the education governor and devote all your time and energy to that? Are you going to be a public
00:36:49.360
works and rebuild roads, uh, or are you going to be a governor that basically tries to do all things
00:36:53.920
to all people? Uh, my sense of the presidency today is all things to all people, uh, and nothing gets
00:37:00.560
done. Uh, there's no overhaul. There's no, no saying to the justice department. Why isn't it working?
00:37:06.960
Why isn't our intelligence system working? Uh, why can't, why in something as important as the presidency,
00:37:13.520
we can't basically know that one side is lying and cheating, uh, and, and manipulating the process.
00:37:20.960
Uh, so, you know, it's, it's, I'm an old man now, you know, and at the end of the day,
00:37:27.520
it's been an extraordinary country and extraordinary life that I've lived, but I worry about the future.
00:37:32.800
And I worry about what we sit and see is critical. You know, we've always bragged about where the,
00:37:38.160
where the beacon to the rest of the world on democracy. If we don't make it work,
00:37:42.240
we don't believe in it as deeply as we did. Hey, it's going to work. Uh, you know,
00:37:46.720
it's going to work if the Russians are pounding on your door and you're trying to save
00:37:50.400
country as they are in Ukraine. But at the end of the day, what's, what's the long-term plan? What is
00:37:54.640
the, what is the plan for China? What is the plan for trade policy? How do we, how do we make sure
00:38:00.000
that people get and build jobs and housing and the things that we need to, uh, without bankrupting
00:38:06.560
ourselves? Uh, right now spending is at a level that's unsustainable,
00:38:11.520
but yet we go on under this president and it will go on under this president until the Republican
00:38:18.000
party comes to term with what they're going to do with rhinos and how they're going to do it.
00:38:23.120
And the future of Kevin McCarthy, uh, and Mitch McConnell, the leadership of the party on Capitol
00:38:29.440
Hill, as you well know, is rhino to the bone. And no one, no one that I've seen has the courage to
00:38:36.480
stand up and say, this is unacceptable. This is the, this is the America first party.
00:38:43.440
This is Donald Trump's party. This is make America great. And what do we have to lead us?
00:38:49.840
Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, your thoughts.
00:38:53.440
Well, they're not, they're not leaders. I mean, I've known McCarthy forever, at this point in time,
00:39:02.080
he lost the speakership once and he's going to do anything to make sure he doesn't lose it again,
00:39:06.880
as opposed to saying, okay, if we get 218 Republicans, which I think we are, this is what I
00:39:13.120
want us to do for the next two years or four years or eight years or whatever. Uh, you know,
00:39:17.760
the wonderful thing is, and I, and I go back to the president I worked for, for Reagan. Reagan was
00:39:22.640
for strong national defense. We had to rebuild the defenses of the country after the Vietnam
00:39:26.240
debacle and what have you. He did that. He was for getting taxes lower because they were record high.
00:39:31.120
He did that. He was for trying to advocate for small business, which he did that. Uh, he was
00:39:35.680
trying to get government off the backs of, of, of, of, of, you know, the small business people. And he did that.
00:39:41.280
But the guy that followed him, who he handed the baton to, cut defense, uh, increased spending,
00:39:49.360
increased taxes, uh, and couldn't understand why he hit his reelection where the campaign I ran for
00:39:55.600
Reagan, we got 59% of the vote. Bush got 39% of the vote seven years later. And that's, and we're
00:40:01.920
somewhere in between there now, you know, it's just, uh, as opposed to saying, all right, here is our
00:40:06.480
policy. Economic policy is critical. Trade policy is critical. Immigration policy. My God,
00:40:12.240
you look at these nightmare scenes on the, on the border. Uh, and, and it's, uh, you know,
00:40:18.880
everybody wants to come here. Uh, those who are here have to, have to decide what they want. Uh,
00:40:26.480
and at the end of the day here, it's a scary thought. A scary thought. And I, I'm going to, uh,
00:40:34.160
give you what we do, uh, with each of our guests on the opportunity for closing thoughts. Uh, you
00:40:39.920
get to have the very last word. The last word is go out and find someone who believes like you do
00:40:48.560
and help them get elected wherever it is, state assembly, Congress, make the political system work
00:40:55.440
again. Uh, and if it doesn't work, throw them out. Don't be afraid to throw them out. And that's
00:41:00.880
what we need to do. Ed Rollins, the savant and great American. Ed, it has been, uh, a fascinating
00:41:10.480
conversation. Thanks for being with us. I look forward to talking with you again soon. Uh,
00:41:15.200
thank you. And God bless you, Ed. Ed Rollins. Thank you, my friend. And thanks everybody for being with
00:41:21.600
us today. I hope you'll join us here tomorrow. We'll be taking up the chaos on our Southern border,
00:41:27.520
a border kept wide open by president Biden and his puppet masters. Millions of illegals,
00:41:34.160
deadly drugs pouring across that border into our country this year, already at record levels. Our
00:41:40.880
guest is Mark Morgan, former commissioner of customs and border protection. Please join us here
00:41:46.720
tomorrow. Till then. God bless you and God bless America.