Lee Zeldin is a former New York Congressman, former Governor, former armed services member, and Chair of the Leadership America Needs Pack. Lee is a conservative hero in his home state of New York and has been a long time member of the New York House of Representatives. He is also an America First voice and has an incredible work ethic. He ran a great campaign for Governor and is one of the most common sense, honest, and productive political minds there is. I think it s a model that can be brought elsewhere and a great example of a work ethic that we need to see more of in our schools and communities. He is a model of common sense and is a great role model for young people who want to get involved in politics and politics in general. He has a great story to tell and I think you will enjoy it. If you do, share it and spread the word to your friends and family about this amazing man! Don t miss it! Don't forget to Like, Share, and Subscribe to our newest podcast, Triggered! It means you'll be the first to know whenever a new episode is released. You'll get notified when a new show goes live! Subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and subscribe to our other social media platforms! You can't Ask Me Anything? - Don't Tell Me What I'm Working On It? by clicking HERE. - Tom P. Gooden, Jr. Gold, D-O-NJ-R-Gold, Inc., D-E- $1.00, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, & $9, $10, $12, $13, $14, $16, $15, $19, $20, & so on, and so on... & so much more! I'll get a copy of the book "Triggered" by Tom's New York Times article on Tuesday, and I'll send you an autographed copy of it on my review of it in the next week! FREE PRODUCING THE PODCAST AND FREE TRAINING AND PATREON BECAUSE I'll Be That's Good, FREE SUPPORTING ME AND A FRIENDS ARE INSTRUCTION AND SUPPORT ME AND FREE TO BUY A MONTH OF TALKING ABOUT IT? AND MORE!
00:05:15.000Okay guys, welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.
00:05:20.000Today we're going to be joined by former New York congressman, former gubernatorial candidate, former armed services member, And chair of the Leadership America Needs Pack, Lee Zeldin. Lee Zeldin's a congressman from near where I used to be from before I left the People's Republic of New York.
00:05:46.000But Lee is also an incredible America First voice.
00:05:50.000He's doing an incredible job building the movement in deep blue states like New York.
00:05:56.000He ran a great campaign for governor, and he's constantly talked about as one of the
00:06:01.000most common sense, honest, and productive political minds there is.
00:06:07.000He's literally responsible for the majority that we at least held before all these retirements
00:07:50.000I really enjoy it, but I'm only on on Mondays and Thursdays, and so it doesn't become a part of your routine.
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00:10:06.000I've seen it. These guys have gotten involved in school board races to make sure your children aren't being indoctrinated by lunatics.
00:10:13.000They donate a portion of every dollar to support groups that fight for the First Amendment, the right to bear arms, the sanctity of life, and protecting our brave police and first responders.
00:11:11.000Guys, with that said, joining me now is my good friend, veteran, congressman, gubernatorial candidate, a true fighter for the America First movement, Lee Zeldin.
00:11:25.000Alright guys, we're going to have some fun with this one because this is actually someone who's a very good friend of mine.
00:11:31.000I think I've done more political fundraisers for Lee Zeldin than probably anyone else.
00:11:36.000It was a little bit easy when you weren't my congressman, but you were like a zone over.
00:11:42.000So it was a quick jump leaving New York City to get to...
00:11:51.000I think we owe you the Republican caucus in Congress right now because you brought four congressmen from New York over a line that really helped save the House.
00:12:08.000Now, it's still a tight margin, which makes it brutal, but talk about that because I feel like there was a sort of a universal, you know, likability to you that We don't often, including myself, don't always ingratiate ourselves to the other side.
00:12:21.000How does that work? You know, 2022 should have been a national red wave, like all across the entire country.
00:12:25.000If Joe Biden is in charge, but it's one party Democratic rule in Washington, they're screwing everything up from the border to foreign policy, the economy, energy policy.
00:12:33.000Why is it that just in a place like New York, and we saw it in a couple of other locations around the country, Republicans were showing up the way that they should.
00:12:41.000And we were getting independents to vote for us the way that they should.
00:12:45.000In New York, we were campaigning hard.
00:13:52.000There are six Republican freshmen who won in seats that Joe Biden won in 2020.
00:14:01.000I guess four gave us a four-seat majority, but it was six that were Democrat-plus districts that were won by Republicans.
00:14:09.000Yeah, four Democrat-held seats ended up being flipped to Republican.
00:14:15.000And, I mean, thank God that we're not dealing with Speaker Pelosi or Jeffries or...
00:14:20.000Jerry Nadler in charge of the House Judiciary Committee is a lot different than Chairman Jim Jordan in charge of the House Judiciary Committee.
00:14:28.000So the impacts of these campaigns, I think there's an important lesson to learn as we go into 2024.
00:14:35.000There are these disenfranchised Asian American parents and Hispanic and black voters and Orthodox Jewish voters and they feel like the Democratic Party is harming them.
00:14:48.000I mean, you see those videos out of, like, Chicago right now, right?
00:14:51.000Like, where you have, you know, a group of African Americans probably never voted for a Republican ever, and they're like, this is ridiculous.
00:18:20.000It's what you are allowing people to envision of what they're getting if they give you that power.
00:18:26.000The one piece that I would add on top of that point, the honorary mention is, once the Dobbs decision came out, If you are a candidate for office, and it's now September, October, you are going to have debates.
00:18:40.000And you are going to act shocked when you get asked a question about abortion.
00:18:46.000I'm sorry, I didn't think about what I might say in response to this.
00:18:49.000There are candidates out there who knew.
00:19:36.000I spoke about it. And you know what ended up happening?
00:19:39.000At the end of the day, the campaign was decided based off of the issues that were most important of voters.
00:19:45.000Crime, the economy, we were getting over COVID, education.
00:19:49.000There were so many other issues that were more important to voters than that one issue.
00:19:53.000But if I was surprised at the end of the day, and I didn't have a good answer for it, like some of these candidates did across the country, well now you've created an issue because you embarrassed yourself so badly with that question that was asked.
00:20:05.000So I would just throw that in as an honorary mention if you look back at 22.
00:20:08.000Why was there not a national red wave?
00:20:12.000I would say we have to work harder, campaign as a team, talk about what you're for.
00:20:16.000But also, don't be naive to the questions that are coming.
00:20:41.000That are just so sick of what's going on.
00:20:44.000You know, the Eric Adams, you know, oh no, we're a sanctuary city.
00:20:48.000Wait a minute, we're not a sanctuary city anymore.
00:20:50.000I mean, the displacement of veterans from literally publicly funded old age homes to make way for illegal immigrants for free.
00:20:59.000It's mind-boggling to me, the insanity that is happening in these cities.
00:21:04.000I mean, does it ever get where New York City has just had enough?
00:21:07.000Do they see it, or are some of the people, they are either too sheltered, the Democratic Party has too much control of sort of the lower economic demographic, and then the rich ones...
00:21:19.000Hey, they don't care as much because they would rather virtue signal and that gets them invited to the cool person party.
00:21:24.000The migrant crisis, the amount of illegal immigrants who have made their way to New York City since November of 2022 has now created a new number one issue.
00:21:33.000I mean, it went from not top three to the number one issue and they're failing miserably on it.
00:21:40.000And you don't have to be a registered Republican.
00:21:42.000We're hearing from independents and Democrats.
00:21:44.000Even Eric Adams said this is destroying the city.
00:21:47.000There are registered Democrats in New York City who register Democrat because they say that they want their vote to count, that a general election doesn't matter as much because these races are usually decided by then.
00:22:00.000But if you're a registered Democrat, you can vote for the most normal city council candidate.
00:22:04.000So there's a lot of Democrats who are conservative and moderate Democrats, a lot of them on Staten Island.
00:22:09.000I mean, we won Staten Island by dozens of points.
00:22:13.000And that is a very heavily populated area of independence and Democrats too.
00:22:19.000I found that there are Asian American parents, when you show up, and again, you don't pander or say, you're not there to say, I love Asian people, vote for me.
00:22:27.000Don't do that kind of identity politics.
00:22:29.000It doesn't work and it shouldn't work. But when you say that you believe that we should not get rid of advanced academics in the name of equity, that we should not get rid of merit-based entry in a specialty school...
00:22:39.000Let's take the smart ones and make sure we really screw them over.
00:22:43.000We want to make sure that they're doing math in class that they were doing seven or eight years ago so it's not to offend someone else.
00:22:51.000Now, by the way, I think that actually ends up being significantly worse because if you're that kid in the class that is underperforming and everyone knows your shit, you're just like, well, I'm just never going to...
00:23:02.000Yeah. By the way, they oppose critical race theory.
00:23:06.000They have members of their own community getting killed, pushed in front of an oncoming subway car, stabbed to their death in Lower Manhattan, beaten to death on the street with a hammer.
00:23:13.000I did The Breakfast Club when I was running for governor, and I was supposed to go in for a 20-minute interview.
00:23:19.000As you know, this is where Hillary Clinton pulled out the hot sauce.
00:23:33.000Because they have enough people that are basically on the payroll to push it.
00:23:37.000When it gets really bad, big tech will suppress it.
00:23:40.000No one in the media will write about it.
00:23:43.000We're just in such a different battle.
00:23:46.000We don't get the benefit of the doubt on anything, even if it's 100% obvious what it was.
00:23:53.000But you bring up the example of Chicago, and it also is another good example.
00:23:58.000You see what's going on with Charlamagne Tha God from Breakfast Club, where I was going for a 20-minute interview.
00:24:03.000I ended up spending an hour and 20 minutes.
00:24:06.000And the interview was going really well, by the way, until we started talking about January 6th.
00:24:09.000And Charlamagne Tha God was trying to get me to try to create, going along with these legal opinions and theories that just were not accurate.
00:26:36.000He's the inverse to George Floyd, who was also a political pawn, utilized perfectly by the Democrat Party to create uprisings and billions of dollars in jammies.
00:26:48.000You can burn down Portland and Seattle, it doesn't matter, that's in the name of social justice, therefore we're not going to do anything.
00:26:56.000And it's sick to see, because they're more than happy to play with the lives of heroes.
00:27:01.000I guess to put everyone in order, be like, you just, you know, let it happen.
00:27:06.000Yeah, and Kamala Harris are raising money to bail out these rioters.
00:27:10.000They had cashless bail on their national platform in 2020.
00:27:14.000And we went through this period where on social media, all of a sudden, people were showing the videos of these incidents and the comments that you'd see in reply to the video is, How bad it is that none of these people who were taking the video were jumping in to protect that victim.
00:27:31.000That was a conversation. Right, left, a lot of people were making that same observation.
00:27:35.000But when you see what happens to someone like Daniel Penny and some of these other cases, now you start to understand why there's so many folks who are sitting there with their cell phones and not getting involved.
00:27:46.000Now, you go get yourself involved to do the right thing...
00:27:53.000Yeah. When you're one-on-one, and you could be outmatched or outweighed, it's like when they put those restrictions on cops, it's like, so the 150-pound female cop is not allowed to put a chokehold on a guy that's on speed and weighs 250 pounds.
00:28:26.000It's not even close, but you put all those limitations on it.
00:28:30.000The problem is, in a fight like that, You know, you're hamstringing yourself, but the other person won't, and if you do it, and if you try to save your own life, and if you have to fight the way you have to fight to survive, you're going to jail.
00:28:41.000They want to get rid of the qualified immunity.
00:28:44.000You're going to lose your pension, your home, your marriage, probably, and they don't even have your back.
00:28:50.000It's lunacy, and the crime that we see is the result of that.
00:28:54.000And if you change races, Well, it's different.
00:28:58.000The law has changed. The application of the law changes inside a prosecutor's office like the Manhattan DA. I remember in the Bronx, and this is a different district attorney, this is Darcel Clark, there was a guy, Jesus Cortez, he was knocked cold into a coma.
00:29:14.000The guy who hit him, put on a glove, the glove had steel.
00:29:17.000This thing was a weapon. Deliberately punches Jesus Cortez into a coma while he's sitting there in a coma.
00:29:22.000I mean, we... Are these all the quote-unquote Soros-type DAs?
00:29:50.000Or are there others that just believe in this insanity?
00:29:54.000Soros' network funds, there's no larger donor that I'm aware of funding these efforts
00:32:08.000There are some great blue-collar Democrats across the country.
00:32:14.000The problem is they don't have anyone representing them in Congress because they won't get the California and the New York City and the Soros money or whatever it takes to actually get into a leadership position.
00:32:25.000So they may exist, but if you're voting for them, it's futile at this point because they have no one in power.
00:32:32.000The voices of the Democrat Party today, the thought leaders of the Democrat Party today, are the most radicalized of those voices.
00:32:40.000Sure there's a couple that are reasonable, but they have no power.
00:32:44.000And guess what? The one thing the Democrats do do well is they just get in line.
00:32:48.000Leadership says this, we're going to do it.
00:32:50.000And that's why you see these policies being enacted and then pushed on a national scale.
00:32:54.000It's why you see people who are in, let's call it purple, or Democrats who live in rather conservative areas are still voting for this other crap.
00:33:05.000And then they go tell the people what they want to hear.
00:33:09.000Media will suppress the Republican opponent from being able to get that message out there.
00:33:14.000So it seems like they're doing you a big favor and you're doing great.
00:33:17.000And they're not really for those things.
00:33:19.000But the reality is they're all complicit at this point.
00:33:23.000Yeah, exactly. And if you claim as a Democrat that you're not one of them, like AOC, then I want to know, in order to show the rest of the world that you're not a coward, are you speaking out against them?
00:33:37.000I hate when you see these, like, Democrat governors and mayors who are saying the federal government is not doing enough to secure our southern border.
00:33:47.000But they then want to blame the MAGA Republicans as opposed to putting the pressure on Joe Biden.
00:33:54.000Joe Biden could have shut this border down, just so we're clear, because they're going to start this one.
00:33:59.000They'll use the fact that there's basically no majority in the House.
00:34:05.000They're going to use that, and they're going to try to flip it.
00:34:07.000I don't know. We could have given you something.
00:34:09.000If you rolled over and everything, this bill that I'm reading about now, this Lankford bill, and this is a Republican senator agreeing with Checha, 5,000 illegal immigrants a day, every day, forever, guaranteed.
00:34:21.000At any other point in history, okay, at any other point in history, that would have been the highest number we even imagined.
00:34:33.000It's almost guaranteed amnesty, and the Republicans are too weak to actually fight this thing.
00:34:37.000Jay Johnson, when he was in the Obama administration, he put out some number like 2,000 or 2,500 a day, like whatever the number was, 1,000, he put out a number that was a lot less than 5,000, essentially saying that anything more than that was a crisis, an emergency.
00:34:51.000We all said from day one, as soon as Biden got sworn into office, that the policies that
00:34:56.000he was implementing was going to cause this crisis, was going to cause this emergency.
00:35:01.000He comes in, stops construction of the border wall, ramps up catch and release, attacks
00:35:05.000the Customs and Border Patrol agents, gets rid of Title 42, gets rid of the Remain in
00:35:09.000Mexico policy, and now you have these Democrats who are acting as if Congress is the lone
00:36:09.000So, to your point about the Democrats today, if there's a Democrat out there who wants to claim that they aren't far left, that they're not radical, that they are somebody different and special, well, I want to see your courage in speaking up against your own.
00:36:39.000What happened? I literally put out a tweet two weeks ago, whatever it was, saying, like, hey, he's more based than half of the Republicans in the United States Senate.
00:36:48.000I mean, he's no J.D. Vance, but, like, I'm agreeing with him.
00:36:51.000But I also understand how the Democrats operate.
00:41:16.000President Trump, I was on stage with him, it was Republicans and Democrats,
00:41:20.000when he signed a new executive order to combat antisemitism on his campuses,
00:41:25.000and then the Biden administration comes in and so much has been heading in the wrong direction.
00:41:30.000And one of the things that we see on these college campuses as this was heading in the wrong direction before October 7th is that the Biden administration and Democratic governors, we had this issue in New York, this was an issue during the campaign, they're like afraid of a certain aspect of their own base and they're not challenging these issues head on.
00:41:52.000Like you have to identify and confront And crush anti-Semitism when it rears its ugly head.
00:41:58.000When Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar want to sound off with nasty anti-Semitism.
00:42:03.000If you want to graduate and celebrate your commencement event at the CUNY School of Law, you have to sit through a vile, hate-filled speech of somebody who is anti-Semitic.
00:42:14.000Just at the City University of New York, there was one example after another.
00:42:18.000Jewish professors having to resign because they don't feel welcome anymore.
00:42:22.000All of those people still voted Democrat.
00:42:25.000The vast majority of Jews in New York vote Democrat, and it ain't even close.
00:42:29.000I mean, I think we probably get a component of the Orthodox community, or most of that, which is a much smaller subset.
00:42:36.000And it's really all about religious freedom more than anything else, right?
00:43:15.000And there's no consequence for doing it.
00:43:17.000So I guess it's just an easier existence.
00:43:18.000If the two of us were sitting there at a congressional hearing and we were asked a question by anyone of whether or not calling for the genocide of...
00:43:28.000Fill in the blank. Whether or not that violates your code of conduct, how do you stumble on that?
00:43:45.000If you're part of an institution, I can't just show up...
00:43:48.000To Trump org and scream whatever I want and expect to keep my job.
00:43:52.000It physically prevents somebody from getting to their classroom.
00:43:55.000No one's saying you can't do this, but no one's also saying there aren't consequences to your actions.
00:43:58.000Walking someone in a building at Cooper Union.
00:44:01.000You can't threaten the lives of people.
00:44:02.000At a university, especially one getting government funding, etc., etc.
00:44:07.000Yeah, and your activities, your actions are actually forcing people to stay inside of a building waiting for law enforcement to come get you out.
00:45:39.000So we're always working from that disadvantage.
00:45:41.000Yeah, Trump's executive order that I referenced, which by the way should have been a law, he signs this executive order.
00:45:46.000I believe that we should be defunding or withholding or leveraging tax dollars going to a university where students are unable to get from their dorm room to a classroom or they're getting locked inside of a building because of folks who are protesting them.
00:46:05.000Where you have a president who's unwilling to say that calling for the genocide of Jews violates their code of conduct, why are we funding as heavily these universities when civil rights are being violated, when you're crossing that line and it's no longer protected free speech?
00:46:25.000No one in Congress is ever going to vote to defund a university because that's where they're starting their indoctrination into the Democrat Party.
00:46:50.000It's like, wait a minute. But again, it is so extreme.
00:46:55.000It's so insane that we're even having this conversation, and yet it's a very real conversation.
00:46:59.000It's happening. You know, a three-year-old couldn't buy a pack of cigarettes, couldn't get a tattoo, couldn't do this for 15 years, but no, no, no.
00:47:05.000They cut the parents out and, you know, they need to get their gender-affirming care or whatever the hell they're talking about with this bullshit.
00:47:13.000Yeah, parents want to be in charge of their kid's education.
00:47:18.000Making the decision to send your kid off to a school is not a relinquishment of your rights to be able to control the upbringing of your child.
00:47:27.000But there are people on the left and there are teachers unions and there are Democrats in office who want to implement, and in many respects have already done it, Where when the parent sends their kid off to school, that they are relinquishing their ability to be a parent and to control the upbringing of their child.
00:47:46.000And you need conservatives to be able to fight back to make this right.
00:47:53.000You can't just be silent on this battle because the left, they are all in.
00:47:58.000I remember President Trump had this max pressure strategy on Iran.
00:48:03.000Right now you're seeing the left on a very different issue with a max pressure effort in our schools to create a system of brainwashing and indoctrination instead of just providing a quality education.
00:48:15.000You see max pressure campaigns from the left.
00:48:22.000I can't think of an issue that is a big issue of the left that isn't a max pressure campaign.
00:48:27.000That's the problem. Everything they do, they're all in.
00:48:30.000We'll sit there like, okay, well, we really believe this, but it's not that much.
00:48:35.000I don't want to be yelled at by someone in the Washington Post who literally hates my guts, hates my politics, hates the people who I actually am chosen to represent in their home state, wherever that may be.
00:48:48.000Now, you have done many episodes and you've had a lot of people on and you've said a lot of things through your shows and otherwise.
00:48:55.000If anyone was to re-listen to what you just said, That right there is one of the most important points of what is happening at this moment in 2024.
00:49:06.000And the lesson is that everything that the right believes in, that conservatives believe in, don't be timid about fighting for it.
00:49:16.000What you see the left doing is it's max pressure on everything.
00:49:21.000Everything. There's not a single issue that's not max pressure.
00:49:24.000There's not a single issue that they wouldn't...
00:49:28.000Forgo everything. And we need to do that.
00:49:31.000We need to be all in fighting for what we believe in.
00:49:36.000And stop trying to make believe like this is the politics of 10 years or 20 years ago.
00:49:41.000Or by the way, in many respects, still the politics of today.
00:49:44.000We just go along, get along, people who are still inside of Congress and elsewhere, and just want to survive past your next election.
00:50:02.000We need to increase our standards of what it is that we believe is necessary in order to actually win.
00:50:08.000I said it, so obviously I agree with you, but you do have a difference.
00:50:12.000And you see this probably better than anyone in New York.
00:50:14.000I try to explain it to some of the guys on the show.
00:50:18.000If you're Matt Gaetz in an R plus 97 district, you can go all in on those issues.
00:50:24.000If you're Mike Lawler in New York in a Democrat plus 13 district who happened to win because crime is rampant, people are waking up a little bit, there are issues that are going to be...
00:50:37.000It doesn't seem to hurt the Democrats, meaning you can be a lunatic, you know, abortion till six years after birth, you know, kind of Democrat, and it doesn't seem to affect them.
00:50:49.000But we do have Republicans that cost us sort of that bigger thing.
00:50:52.000And by the way, I understand it, because I understand in their district, it'll be weaponized so much harder against them.
00:50:58.000How do we level that playing field so that we can move...
00:51:02.000You know, move forward together and actually win.
00:51:06.000If you want to step up and be a member of Congress or state legislator or governor or president or whatever, you need to understand you are signing up to be a messenger and to lean into communication.
00:51:17.000You are going to take some tough votes.
00:51:20.000You have to have the willingness to be able to explain to your constituents why it is that you voted a particular way.
00:51:26.000In some deep red district, they don't need to provide an explanation.
00:51:30.000Some do it anyway. If you are in a district that Joe Biden won heavily and you have to take a vote to, let's say, impeach Secretary Mayorkas, that's one of the things that's being discussed right now, you have to have a willingness, an ability, a talent to message and communicate to your own voters to explain why you're taking a position that maybe, even though they voted for Joe Biden, that person you're talking to, that they can understand what you're thinking, what your rationale is, There are too many people who are stepping up to run who are not good messengers, they're not good communicators, they're quite frankly lazy,
00:52:08.000and they don't want to take the tough vote.
00:52:11.000Now that I'm in Congress, I'm in the big leagues.
00:52:14.000I'm just going to stay here, so I'm a Republican that's going to vote Democrat.
00:52:17.000And I'm like, well... The other side doesn't have that problem.
00:52:22.000Yeah. Even the moderates go full in on the crazy.
00:52:25.000And you end up, like, your own base ends up wondering, like, well, what's the point?
00:52:30.000Because you give them a choice between a Democrat and a Democrat light.
00:52:38.000And I would have the most conservative voting record of any member of Congress in the northeast of this country.
00:52:45.000And I often would take votes where I would be the only Republican voting with the conservatives and then the editorials and I would constantly get hammered for it.
00:52:56.000I understood. I wasn't caught off guard.
00:53:00.000I knew that casting the vote was going to be a headache to have to explain to people, especially when you're the only one Republican, Democrat in your entire state voting that way.
00:55:32.000Whether it's a shutdown or this, you can shut down the government but still say, hey, we're going to shut down, but we will agree to pay our debts because the Democrats will leverage, oh, and you can't default on our debt.
00:55:42.000By the way, there's plenty of people watching this right now that are going to be like, that's bullshit, Dot.
00:55:45.000It's like, no, no, no. You don't understand what that would do to our economy.
00:55:49.000We would no longer be the reserve currency of the world, which may do us a favor because at least we won't be able to spend on bullshit, but we also wouldn't be able to spend on basically living at this point with all the bloat.
00:55:59.000We've got to get rid of that stuff, but it's not so simple.
00:56:02.000But you also need the resolve to do that.
00:56:05.000So when I look at it, I'm like, he's a nice guy.
00:56:08.000He's a smart guy. But there is something about being also politically astute.
00:56:13.000And, you know, say what you want about Chuck Schumer.
00:56:16.000These guys, you know, are they rolling him in these things?
00:56:18.000When I see the picture, he's coming out with Mitch and we're getting along.
00:56:36.000The Senate Democrats, and in many respects you won't see that of some of the Senate Republicans who are sitting at the table, you're not going to get it out of the White House.
00:56:49.000So everything that matters, understanding by the way that voters, yes, will have an opportunity this November to correct a lot of what is wrong.
00:56:58.000But between now and then, in order to be able to defend our republic, to secure our borders, to keep this administration accountable, we need Mike Johnson and the House Republican Conference to be outperforming expectations I just happen to believe that it is going to be a difficult year, but even though it's difficult, listen, there's no excuse for not getting it done.
00:57:25.000Yeah, we'll give you a couple bucks for the border.
00:57:28.000It doesn't actually solve anything, but you're going to give us another $60 billion to perpetuate the death and destruction and mayhem of the Ukraine war, which Ukraine has exactly zero chance of winning.
00:57:39.000Because, you know, someone wants their board seat at Boeing, so they'll spend $60 billion to make a six-figure bonus next year for them.
00:58:00.000But when do you have the resolve to actually say, I don't care.
00:58:03.000It's the right thing to do for the American people.
00:58:05.000And then we've got to get out there and actually fight that battle.
00:58:07.000Yeah. Listen, as someone who did not vote in favor of multiple Ukraine aid packages, I am not intimidated by what is now the responsibility to explain to people why I have a position that I have.
00:58:22.000And I think that the Republicans need to do a better job calling on this administration to identify exactly what winning is in Ukraine because they have no idea and they haven't articulated it.
00:58:34.000And we should not be providing aid towards a foreign conflict ever without having any idea whatsoever being articulated by the administration of what the endgame is.
00:58:44.000Well, how about what the money's actually being spent on?
00:58:49.000I mean, the Pentagon lost, what was it, $220 billion?
00:58:52.000And it's like, I don't know. They literally can't account for it.
00:58:56.000The same government, the same administration that wants, if I have a Venmo account for $601, they want a full audit, and if I screw something up, I'm going to jail.
00:59:06.000I'm sure that was all sent to Ukraine, and I'm sure they're getting it all back, but they're still not telling us where it went.
00:59:12.000You know, they don't not only have an endgame, they're not even monitoring what's going on.
00:59:17.000I mean, we got random missiles all over the place.
00:59:20.000I'm sure that won't be used against us in the not-distant future.
00:59:22.000I mean, every time we've armed, let's call it, you know, out-of-control regimes, you know, it usually comes back to bite us in the ass, you know, see Afghanistan and others, you know.
00:59:34.000I mean, Mitch McConnell has said, and I don't know if you've seen me do this, I know we've talked about it, but Ukraine is the number one issue for Republicans in America.
00:59:46.000I speak to more people on a weekly basis than Mitch McConnell has spoken to in his entire political career because no one gives a shit and no one shows up other than the big donors.
00:59:59.000I've done the surveys. I do it every time I speak in front of thousands of people, which is multiple times a week.
01:00:04.000One person one time said it was a top ten issue.
01:00:06.000He happened to be from the Ukraine, so I get it.
01:00:08.000I'm going to give him a pass. So if you take away the people who are biased because they actually are from there...
01:00:15.000Exactly zero Republicans think of it as a top ten issue, and yet our representative in the Senate that has trillions of dollars to spend will more than happily mortgage our children's futures to the hilt.
01:00:27.000It's not. It's not a number one issue for anyone outside of D.C. And you go one step further, and you ask the Republicans, do you want to provide more aid, regardless of whether it's a top ten issue or not?
01:00:37.000You go one step further, you ask them anyway.
01:00:39.000So do you want to provide more aid or no?
01:00:44.000And I think that we just touched on two what should be rules.
01:00:48.000Whenever the United States is ever considering the possibility of providing a dollar of foreign aid towards any conflict anywhere, is whoever is in charge must Be required to define exactly what the mission is, what success is, what's the endgame.
01:01:07.000You have to actually have a strategy to achieve it.
01:01:09.000And secondly, to your point, which is absolutely right, there needs to always be a full accounting.
01:01:14.000And when a member of Congress is asking a question about how this money is being spent, they get attacked as if they're like unpatriotic.
01:01:29.000You have an obligation to tell your constituents that you asked the question and not only do you ask the question, you actually know the answer and here's the answer.
01:01:36.000I think these are two rules that, you know, right now we're having this conversation in 2024.
01:01:41.000If it was 2044, It should still apply.
01:01:46.000It should still withstand the test of time and be two things that needs to be part of the process to even consider a single dollar of foreign aid to a foreign conflict.
01:01:57.000Yeah, well, it's like Mitch has been there for 50 years, whatever.
01:02:00.000He's glitching. It's almost like he doesn't realize...
01:02:06.000It's like, oh, we gotta take out Russia at all costs.
01:02:08.000I'm like, I don't understand. For Ukraine?
01:02:10.000Like, a country that was literally listed, even by many US standards, as more corrupt than Russia before?
01:02:17.000I'm sure this is not a big graft ring.
01:02:20.000Because of course it is. Of course it is.
01:02:23.000You know, our sanctions against Putin has actually helped Russia.
01:02:25.000It's driven up the price of oil, which is allowing them to continue the war forever.
01:02:29.000They're getting off the reserve currency of the United States because our sanctions prohibit them to do it.
01:02:32.000So they're going to trade with the Saudis and the yuan and China and all that.
01:02:37.000I mean, we are literally screwing ourselves in this whole process while bankrupting our country
01:02:42.000and depleting our stockpiles for, if we ever actually had to defend ourselves,
01:02:46.000which we don't seem willing to do because our border's wide open.
01:02:48.000But, you know, the Ukraine border, we gotta make sure to really lock that one up.
01:02:51.000Yeah, and as somebody who is critical of Ukraine, the corruption has been there a long time,
01:02:56.000one administration to the next, that's a real issue.
01:02:59.000As somebody who is on Putin's permanent sanctions list and permanently banned from visiting Russia,
01:03:06.000but using this particular conflict as an example, what matters most is what is in America's best interest.
01:03:14.000And how can you ever be more concerned about another nation's border when you are not providing the proper attention and focus to your own border?
01:03:23.000And I'll say one other thing, by the way, about this whole Russia versus Ukraine.
01:03:29.000If President Trump was still in office.
01:03:31.000In August of 2021, when we were doing a fatally flawed withdrawal from Afghanistan, a total face plant that turned 13 Blue Star families into Gold Star families.
01:03:41.000You know Putin was watching because he wants to go into Ukraine.
01:04:11.000When President Trump would have said, hey, guess what?
01:04:12.000We've always had this thousand mile buffer zone between Neto and you.
01:04:15.000You know, we're just going to bring him in.
01:04:16.000It's like, that's all he needed. He's been waiting to, if he wanted to invade, that was the excuse he needed.
01:04:21.000If he didn't, we almost forced his hand.
01:04:25.000It's lunacy. So, you know, The next thing, you were floated.
01:04:30.000You were floated as possibly taking over the RNC. When I asked you for your assessment of Speaker Johnson, what about the RNC? How do we do that to fix that?
01:05:10.000So I'm one of the chairs at the America First Policy Institute, and we have a C4 called America First Works, and we have been working with conservative groups, Turning Point, and others reaching out to different demographics across the country.
01:05:25.000We're filling gaps that, quite frankly, shouldn't be gaps.
01:05:31.000And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I think that everything that we can identify that needs to improve with the Republican Party is going to get fixed by November.
01:05:42.000My top priority is making sure that President Trump gets into office in November.
01:05:50.000There's going to be other important races on the ballot.
01:05:53.000I believe that the RNC needs to lean more heavily into voter outreach.
01:06:00.000If a state legalizes ballot harvesting, listen, I think there shouldn't be ballot harvesting in all 50 states.
01:06:04.000It's a bad thing. If the state wants to legalize it, the RNC needs to take the lead in making sure that Republicans are ballot harvesting Better than Democrats at the point Democrats are regretting it.
01:06:14.000You can't change these laws unless you're in power to actually change them.
01:06:17.000And we've seen, you know, even in places like, you know, the left will strong arm the Republican on the commission and, okay, fine, I'll give you what you want, just please leave me alone, don't hurt me.
01:06:26.000It's brutal. But we've got to play the game based on the battlefield.
01:06:29.000Whatever the battlefield is, we can't just forfeit the game.
01:06:32.000So, and you said something important about the down-ballot races.
01:06:35.000I mean, how do we focus on getting those guys that are there, that are electable, We're good to go.
01:07:02.000I support, you mentioned three states in Ohio.
01:07:05.000I support Bernie Moreno as one of his first endorsements.
01:07:34.000My message to all those Republicans who are out there that if you care about a higher stake, a moment in time where we have to defend our republic, Regardless of whether you did everything in your power when she ran for governor or not, I am asking you out there, anyone out there in Arizona, to help make sure that she's the next senator from Arizona.
01:08:01.000Yeah, this is our last chance on the Senate map, right?
01:08:03.000Because, you know, there's only 100 senators and it's a six-year term.
01:08:06.000It's not like Congress where you're running every two years like a dancing monkey.
01:08:11.000This is the last time where we have, let's call it, you know, Good candidates in purple states that we could actually make some gains in the Senate.
01:08:20.000And you see with these close tiebreakers, if you end up with a stalemate that's just a disaster, it's literally like a decade before we have another favorable map where it's not just, hey, the people that are coming up are hardcore blue states, Like, you know, New York, you know, coming up and forth,
01:08:38.000like, you're not flipping a seat there.
01:08:40.000You know, this time you have Arizona, you have Montana, you have Ohio, you have places that are, you know,
01:08:46.000clearly, like, we could actually make gains if we fight it right.
01:08:49.000But after that, it's literally like, I think, I was talking to Steve Daines from Montana,
01:08:54.000and he was like, it's literally like 10 years before we get another chance to ever change
01:10:28.000The drop-off that you go down-ballot, people will show up, they will vote for president, and then they'll walk out.
01:10:34.000Yeah. And you end up helping elect more Democrats by doing that.
01:10:40.000Yeah. When the Democrats are successful in convincing their voters to not just vote for the presidential race, but to go vote blue all the way down to the end of the line, at the end of the line, there are important races for judges.
01:10:52.000Mm-hmm. You turn over the entire judicial branch if you don't go down to the bottom of the ballot.
01:11:00.000And by the way, if somebody slips in for some town supervisor position, you're actually helping that person, maybe one day that Democrat, get elected to Congress.
01:12:39.000You weren't asking for, like, you know, money or endorsements, right?
01:12:42.000Like, you've never asked for anything.
01:12:44.000You don't do that from anyone. We need to get this message out and I wish that we could clone you and have many others like you who have...
01:13:05.000The ball's max pressure to go all in on the causes that are most important to us.
01:13:11.000And for everything that you've done involved on the east end of Long Island and in New York, all of your help through the years, it really means a lot.
01:13:16.000I want to say thank you. It's my pleasure, man.
01:13:17.000Thank you for all... By the way, Lee is the same way, man.
01:13:21.000I know you're traveling with my father as we leave from this, so I know you've got to get rolling, but I appreciate everything that you're doing out there.
01:13:27.000You've shown that even in places like deep, dark, blue New York, you can actually make a difference.
01:13:32.000You don't just have to cede You know, one of the biggest states in the union.
01:13:35.000We can fight back, we can win with logic, reason, and if you have the work ethic, a lot can happen.
01:13:39.000I got to say one thing quick. New York is 22% Republican, but we got just under 50% of the vote.
01:13:46.000I don't care what state you are from tuning in.
01:13:48.000I bet you, you probably have a lot more than 22% of your state registered Republican.
01:13:53.000And even in a state like that, we got just under 50% of the vote.
01:13:57.000So I hope that we end up with an expanded map.
01:14:00.000Yeah. That we go on offense and we make history this November.
01:16:01.000The transition is quick and it's easy.
01:16:05.000And they donate a portion of every dollar to groups that fight for the First Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, the sanctity of life, protecting brave police and first responders.
01:16:13.000They're out there literally fighting and winning school board battles.