Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - The Thread of Liberty & the Administrative State, Interview with Ned Ryun | Triggered Ep.359

00:06:21.000 Hey guys, and welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.

00:06:24.000 I hope everyone's doing well today.

00:06:26.000 We have a great one today because America just turned 250.

00:06:30.000 And the question now is not whether we can throw a good birthday party.

00:06:33.000 We've already answered that question.

00:06:35.000 It was pretty epic.

00:06:36.000 The question is whether we still understand what we are actually celebrating and whether we're willing to keep it in the decades to come and for the future.

00:06:45.000 We'll be joined by Ned Ryan.

00:06:47.000 He's the founder and CEO of American Majority and the director of a brand new documentary called The Thread of Liberty.

00:06:54.000 Keeping our republic.

00:06:55.000 So, guys, make sure you're liking, sharing, subscribing so you never miss one of these major episodes.

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00:07:16.000 For all of the headlines that we cover here on the show, check out my news app, MXM News, like Mike X-Ray Mike, minute by minute, MXM News, where you can get the mainstream news.

00:07:24.000 Without the mainstream bias.

00:07:26.000 And of course, thanks to our brave sponsors for having the guts to support this program.

00:07:31.000 Okay, it takes guts to support this show, I can assure you.

00:07:34.000 So check them out.

00:07:36.000 And if you're going to be out there getting some of these things, why don't you spend your money with those who share your values?

00:07:42.000 Washington debates are complicated.

00:07:44.000 This one isn't.

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00:09:24.000 And before we get to Ned, let's take a few minutes to cover some of the top headlines.

00:09:28.000 And I want to start in Pennsylvania because yesterday my father brought together The people who actually build the things that keep this country safe ships, radar systems, military technology, all of it.

00:09:41.000 The announcement was nearly $10 billion in new defense investment in Pennsylvania, more than 4,000 jobs, new ships built at the historic Philadelphia shipyard, and major new commitments from companies that have spent too many years being told to build somewhere else.

00:10:00.000 Check it out.

00:10:01.000 But since I took office, defense investments in Pennsylvania are up by nearly 25%. compared to crooked Joe Biden.

00:10:08.000 and today we're adding $10 billion, and I think the number is going to end up being about $19 or $20 billion.

00:10:16.000 And we'll be building two massive national security multi-mission vessels at the beautiful and historic Philadelphia Shipyard.

00:10:23.000 I met all the guys doing this, worth up to $1.5 billion, and it's a purchase of lots of vessels.

00:10:30.000 We're going to have a lot of vessels being made there.

00:10:33.000 We're also thinking about doing some purchases outside of companies that come here and build.

00:10:38.000 They have to reteach us.

00:10:39.000 You know, we used to make a ship a day.

00:10:41.000 And now we're a laggard in that department.

00:10:43.000 We do lots of great things, but we're a laggard there.

00:10:47.000 For decades, the geniuses in Washington treated the American industrial base like it was disposable.

00:10:53.000 Send the factories overseas, let the shipyards die, depend on foreign countries for your equipment, even our own military needs, and then hold another hearing about why everything costs so much and takes too long.

00:11:06.000 Now the direction is changing.

00:11:08.000 Build the ships here, build the radar here, hire the welders here. 0.97

00:11:13.000 Train the next generation here in America, the way it's supposed to be.

00:11:18.000 And this is more than defense spending. 0.74

00:11:20.000 A country that can't build cannot remain free for very long.

00:11:24.000 If your supply chains belong to your adversaries, if your factories are empty, if your skilled workers totally disappear, then your independence exists on paper and literally nowhere else.

00:11:35.000 Real sovereignty requires real capacity, it requires citizens to know how to actually make things.

00:11:42.000 Communities that can support families and a government that remembers.

00:11:45.000 Its first responsibility is to its own people.

00:11:48.000 That's fundamental.

00:11:50.000 It's critical.

00:11:51.000 Which brings me to the other responsibility of citizenship voting.

00:11:56.000 JD Vance went on Joe Rogan and put the voter ID argument in the plainest, simple terms, okay?

00:12:04.000 The plainest possible terms you could have imagined.

00:12:06.000 Every serious country verifies who's voting.

00:12:09.000 Normal Americans support it.

00:12:11.000 You need identification for a hundred less important things in everyday life.

00:12:16.000 Frankly, I'm sure you need identification to get on food stamps and government assistance programs.

00:12:20.000 You can probably use it to vote.

00:12:22.000 But somehow, when you ask for ID before somebody chooses the government of the United States, I don't know, Democrats act like you've proposed the end of democracy.

00:12:33.000 Watch JD in his own words.

00:12:35.000 You actually saw that.

00:12:36.000 Not only did they not have voter ID, you can't show your ID.

00:12:39.000 You're not allowed to show your ID.

00:12:41.000 You can, in fact, be prosecuted if you try to force somebody to show their ID.

00:12:45.000 That seems like you want people to cheat.

00:12:48.000 Exactly.

00:12:49.000 And is this from the same people that were saying you have to have an ID that shows you've been vaccinated?

00:12:54.000 Just four years ago.

00:12:55.000 To go to grocery shopping or to go to a restaurant.

00:12:57.000 Yeah.

00:12:57.000 No, it's definitely that's the part about it that I think makes most people of my political persuasion skeptical of what the Democrats are doing.

00:13:07.000 Like if you don't want to cheat in the election, then just make everybody actually show an ID.

00:13:12.000 The other thing people don't realize is I didn't realize this until a couple years ago.

00:13:16.000 The voter ID solves a lot of the mail in ballot problem because if you have to show an ID in order to get a mail in ballot, in order to actually You know, confirm that there's a real identification attached to that vote.

00:13:29.000 That solves a big chunk of the problem, too.

00:13:31.000 This is just logical.

00:13:32.000 Yes.

00:13:32.000 Like, I don't, I'm not, I'm not skeptical.

00:13:37.000 I'm accusing them.

00:13:38.000 I think they stole the election.

00:13:40.000 Citizens vote, legal ballots get counted.

00:13:43.000 The rules are clear before election day.

00:13:47.000 Everyone has to play by those same rules.

00:13:50.000 That's not voter suppression, guys.

00:13:51.000 That's literally like the minimum standard for self government.

00:13:55.000 For self government.

00:13:57.000 And tonight, my father will deliver remarks on the very issue and reveal even more findings about actual foreign interference in our elections, including Chinese access to voter rolls, buried intel reports about voter fraud.

00:14:13.000 Let's just say there'll be major declassifications and much, much more.

00:14:18.000 This is what federal power is actually for protecting the country's institutions, defending citizens, going after foreign criminals who target Americans.

00:14:27.000 Not deciding what kind of stove they can buy, whether they can have AC or not, or what temperature it should be set at.

00:14:35.000 Not turning every agency into a political weapon.

00:14:38.000 Not handing more power to some unelected bureaucrat who thinks your life is a problem for him to manage.

00:14:45.000 Build and preserve what keeps America independent.

00:14:48.000 Protect the integrity of the vote.

00:14:50.000 Hunt down the people who attack American citizens.

00:14:53.000 Simple.

00:14:55.000 Those are the jobs of a serious government.

00:14:58.000 Check this out.

00:15:00.000 The founding of America makes you believe in Providence if you don't already.

00:15:05.000 Nearly 5,000 years of recorded experience said free people could not sustain self government for long.

00:15:12.000 Every republic had failed.

00:15:14.000 The framers of the Constitution took a trip through the graveyard of past constitutions, the 12 tablets of Rome, the Athenian Constitution, what we have of it.

00:15:25.000 They looked at everything.

00:15:26.000 Their aim is to outdo the glory of Greece.

00:15:30.000 Outdo the glory of Rome.

00:15:32.000 And if they failed, what would happen? 0.68

00:15:35.000 They would be hung as traitors.

00:15:38.000 This experiment in self government is actually a blip in the broader scheme of recorded human history.

00:15:45.000 They knew how fragile this was.

00:15:47.000 The transformative thing about the Declaration was this idea that everyone is born with rights.

00:15:53.000 Rights don't come down from on high, they're not granted to us from a king.

00:15:58.000 Our system of tripartite government.

00:16:02.000 Bill of Rights, checks and balances.

00:16:04.000 It almost doesn't exist anywhere else.

00:16:07.000 I'm Ned Ryan.

00:16:08.000 Join me as we trace the threat of liberty and ask the most urgent question of our time Can we save the Republic?

00:16:26.000 And with that, we bring Ned Ryan, the founder and CEO of American Majority, and his new documentary, The Thread of Liberty, Keeping Our Republic, is now available at threadofliberty.com.

00:16:37.000 Ned, great to have you back with us, man.

00:16:38.000 How are you doing?

00:16:39.000 I appreciate it.

00:16:40.000 Thanks for the opportunity, Don.

00:16:42.000 So, Ned, America just turned 250.

00:16:45.000 You've spent years working on this film.

00:16:48.000 What do you want Americans to feel about it when the credits roll?

00:16:52.000 At the end of the show, what do you want people getting out of this?

00:16:55.000 A couple things.

00:16:56.000 One, I want this to be a rebirth or renewal of instinctive patriotism.

00:17:02.000 Alexis de Tocqueville writes about it in Democracy in America, but instinctive patriotism is that inborn love of country because it's our country.

00:17:10.000 And for people to have that renewed again, but also to renew, Don, an obligation to the experiment.

00:17:17.000 I want them to be inspired.

00:17:18.000 This is an incredible story.

00:17:20.000 The founding of America in the last 250 years, incredible story, but to also renew that obligation to the experiment because America is not on autopilot.

00:17:30.000 I think it's the duty and responsibility of every generation to take up that threat of liberty to carry it on for the next generation to be able to enjoy freedom and liberty and our way of life.

00:17:40.000 Yeah.

00:17:40.000 I mean, we see the threats to that, you know, daily, especially, you know, on our side.

00:17:44.000 So, you know, the title is The Threat of Liberty, Keeping Our Republic.

00:17:48.000 So, what is in your mind the thread?

00:17:52.000 Where do you think it's closest to breaking right now as well?

00:17:55.000 So, we wanted to kind of tell the story from the founding and how every generation, and Don, the amazing, I consider myself a pretty close.

00:18:03.000 Student of American history and American politics, but I was just reminded in producing this film how many inflection points where this experiment could have failed.

00:18:13.000 But we kind of cover five chapters in the documentary where at these inflection points, that current generation decided, I still feel that moral obligation to the experiment and I'm going to grab hold of it.

00:18:25.000 I'm going to find the political will and courage to continue the experiment to pass it on to the next generation.

00:18:31.000 So, you know, the founding of the country, the revolution, civil war, reconstruction.

00:18:36.000 And then we lead into the modern era where I think we're in another inflection point in which we're dealing with the administrative state.

00:18:42.000 And it's going to be a question of do we, as the current generation, still have it within us to grab hold of that thread?

00:18:48.000 Do we understand what the thread is, what it means to be an American, what it means to be a self governing republic, to grab hold of it and say, we're going to hold on to this thread, renew it, and pass it on to the next generation?

00:18:59.000 So just kind of this theme of throughout our entire history, every generation at a certain point has decided, yep, I still feel that obligation.

00:19:06.000 And I hope this current generation does as well.

00:19:08.000 Well, I think you definitely see plenty of people, at least on our side right now, pushing back on the administrative state.

00:19:14.000 I think you're right.

00:19:14.000 That's probably one of the great threats to that thread right now.

00:19:22.000 But it does push back.

00:19:24.000 I know that as well as probably anyone.

00:19:26.000 My family certainly sees that as well as anyone.

00:19:29.000 How do Americans sort of get over that and say, hey, we still have to get in this game?

00:19:33.000 We can't allow it just to happen because we understand the consequence of actually even attempting to take action?

00:19:39.000 You know, what are your thoughts on that?

00:19:41.000 And how do we make sure that those values are instilled in that next generation to say, you know what, it's going to be inconvenient, but you got to fight.

00:19:47.000 Everything that you got to fight for that's worth fighting for, you know, has a component of significant inconvenience.

00:19:52.000 Yeah, no, I just think about Thomas Paine and the crisis what we gain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

00:19:58.000 It's his dearness only that gives every man, gives everything its value.

00:20:01.000 And we have to decide if this is valuable.

00:20:03.000 And it is.

00:20:04.000 I mean, Don, I think the founding, and I'm kind of quoting Ken Burns here a little bit, who's not exactly a conservative.

00:20:10.000 But one of the most important events in world history since the birth of Christ was the American Revolution and the founding of the Free American Republic.

00:20:18.000 We have to understand in many ways what we have.

00:20:20.000 The free American constitutional republic was the pinnacle of Western civilization.

00:20:25.000 The first time ever in world history that we had a rights based republic in which the people were sovereign.

00:20:31.000 And I think one of the things that I think we've been losing sight of, I would argue the 20th century has been a lot of progressive propaganda on a whole host of levels, even into the 21st century.

00:20:41.000 We have to tell the true story of the founding clear eyed.

00:20:44.000 I mean, we deal with the issue of slavery for about 10 or 15 minutes in this documentary, and we examine where the founders had their flaws.

00:20:51.000 But at the same time, the incredible things they set in motion, and even though they weren't able to successfully deal with some of the issues that we've been dealing with for millennia, they put in motion the fact that all men are created equal.

00:21:07.000 I would argue they really set in motion the abolition movement.

00:21:10.000 And eventually, as de Tocqueville said, we have a great capability as a country to repair our faults.

00:21:14.000 So I think people have to have a better knowledge of who we are.

00:21:18.000 You can't love what you do not know.

00:21:20.000 And I look at the younger generations and also think you're never going to defend what you despise.

00:21:25.000 And that's a real issue with our indoctrination centers.

00:21:27.000 They've been taught to despise this country in the founding.

00:21:30.000 Yeah, well, that seems so incredibly intentional.

00:21:32.000 But I guess the film really makes the case that the American founding wasn't some accident or a collection of slogans.

00:21:40.000 It wasn't memes, right?

00:21:41.000 It came out of literally thousands of years of thinking about human nature, power, law.

00:21:47.000 What did the founders understand about human nature that perhaps modern Washington has forgotten?

00:21:55.000 Modern Washington has forgotten a lot.

00:21:57.000 I'll get to that.

00:21:58.000 Almost all of it.

00:21:59.000 Almost all of it is my concern, Don, and we'll address this at some point in a little bit here.

00:22:04.000 But one of the reasons I did this film is do we actually still know what we're seeking, what we're trying to renew?

00:22:10.000 Have we lost the vision for what we were actually given?

00:22:13.000 We have to be reminded of that.

00:22:14.000 But no, the founders were incredible students of history.

00:22:18.000 They went back through the graveyards of history and they looked at the Roman Republic and the Greek city states and all of these things that had failed along the way and tried to figure out why they failed?

00:22:29.000 How can we actually deal with some of these things?

00:22:31.000 Like James Madison thought, Factionalism was one of the great threats to republics.

00:22:35.000 How do we set faction against faction and just use power?

00:22:39.000 So they were realistic too about human nature, right?

00:22:41.000 We're imperfect human beings in an imperfect world, yet we've been given these God given rights.

00:22:45.000 So, how do you secure God given rights yet don't trust imperfect human nature with too much power?

00:22:50.000 So, that was one of the things they were struggling with.

00:22:52.000 But they were also in the flow of thought from John Locke and some of these other English Whigs, in which the whole purpose of government was to secure our natural inherent rights. 0.56

00:23:01.000 That's the entire legitimate, just Purpose of government. 0.76

00:23:05.000 And so they were determined we are going to create a rights based government.

00:23:10.000 And that's what they did.

00:23:11.000 And that was one of the most unique things that had ever happened in world history.

00:23:16.000 And they thought they'd been able to solve a lot of the problems that previous republics had been unable to solve.

00:23:21.000 And that's why they'd eventually failed.

00:23:23.000 Yeah.

00:23:24.000 I mean, it sort of reminds me of sort of the beginning of our journey onto the political side of things.

00:23:30.000 At first, I got in.

00:23:31.000 I was like, hey, I'm fighting to preserve this nation that, and these ideas.

00:23:37.000 That were so firmly entrenched.

00:23:39.000 It actually turns out that was a lot of it was a lie.

00:23:43.000 It was like you sold this bill of goods and those things didn't actually exist.

00:23:47.000 They'd been taken away by the administrative state or by big government or whatever.

00:23:50.000 And it turns out I was fighting to actually create an idea that was probably at its inception with the founders what they intended, but had not really existed in a long time.

00:24:01.000 So it was almost trying to create what should have been, but perhaps got lost along the way.

00:24:08.000 What are your thoughts on that?

00:24:09.000 And where did it start perhaps?

00:24:11.000 Going a little bit awry, if you agree with my analogy.

00:24:15.000 I do.

00:24:16.000 I would argue we started taking a turn for the wrong in the wrong direction with the presidential election of 1912.

00:24:22.000 That was the election of Woodrow Wilson, really the beginning of the administrative state and a complete and total rejection of the founder's philosophy on human nature and on the role of government, right?

00:24:32.000 Progressives really thought human nature was perfectible in the here and now.

00:24:35.000 They thought government was the source and the giver of all rights.

00:24:38.000 They thought that the state was the vehicle by which you would achieve perfection in this world.

00:24:43.000 And so I would argue we've been dealing with this thinking for well over 100 years.

00:24:47.000 And I agree with you.

00:24:48.000 I would argue that America First movement in many ways is about a great restoration of what was, because you and I both know we can use some of the same terms.

00:25:00.000 We still use a lot of the same terms, you know, separation of powers, and we have the legislative, the executive, the judicial, and we talk about federalism, which is a lie right now.

00:25:08.000 It doesn't exist really in reality.

00:25:10.000 So we use the same terms, but in essence, we are completely different from what the founders envisioned.

00:25:15.000 So, how do we restore in the essence?

00:25:19.000 What the founders gave us, and actually return this to a government of, by, and for the people, in which it's actually representative government on all aspects.

00:25:26.000 Again, that's another thing I would argue the administrative state has completely hollowed out.

00:25:31.000 And so, no, I agree.

00:25:32.000 I think we're in the middle of and have a shot at the great restoration.

00:25:36.000 But how we've been operating in D.C., the sad part is I think progressives were extremely successful in removing the essence of the Constitutional Republic and replacing it with the unelected bureaucrats in the administrative state.

00:25:48.000 Well, I think the other big one is, you know, and one of the big ideas of the film is that.

00:25:52.000 Rights came from God.

00:25:54.000 Government does not give them to us.

00:25:57.000 They came from God.

00:25:58.000 And whether we have separation of church and state, those unalienable rights still exist from that creator.

00:26:05.000 Why does that distinction matter so much in a country where more and more people really just expect the government to solve every one of their problems?

00:26:13.000 Yeah, this is one of the things where I would remind people if you really think that rights come from government, the government is the giver of all rights.

00:26:21.000 A government that's big enough to give rights is also big enough to take away the rights.

00:26:24.000 And they will.

00:26:26.000 As we have seen, that's not just a theory, as you would know.

00:26:29.000 Right.

00:26:30.000 It's one of those things where the founders of this country believe government should be limited in size and scope because they didn't trust government.

00:26:37.000 I mean, they didn't trust themselves.

00:26:38.000 That's the amazing thing, Don.

00:26:39.000 When you look back at summer of 1787 and they're constructing the Constitution, they didn't even trust themselves.

00:26:44.000 They're like, we got to diffuse power.

00:26:45.000 We have to have separation of powers because we don't trust ourselves as human beings.

00:26:49.000 And human beings should not be trusted with consolidated power.

00:26:51.000 But the most important thing, and I think the difference that we're dealing with, and I know this is probably a shock to like Senator. Tim Kaine, rights do not come from governments.

00:27:00.000 They come from a creator, the transcendent creator who gave us these unalienable rights.

00:27:05.000 And the purpose of government is to secure them, is to protect them, is to make sure that every right that we've been given by our creator is protected and none are taken away.

00:27:15.000 And I think we've lost sight of that.

00:27:16.000 And so I would argue the big struggle at a fundamental level is how do you view human nature and how do you view the role of government?

00:27:23.000 And if you view human nature as perfectible and the government as giver of all rights, You're probably going to tend towards statism and the progressive way of thinking.

00:27:31.000 If you believe that human nature, we're capable of great good, we're incapable of sustained good, we're imperfect human beings, and government is meant to secure rights and take none of them away, you're probably going to be more towards the conservative side of things.

00:27:41.000 So, those are some fundamental things that I think we've lost sight of in DC.

00:27:45.000 And I would like to see a lot more Republicans, quite frankly, actually get back to that idea of we should be making sure that government is protecting and securing the rights of the American people instead of just sitting there as bystanders.

00:27:57.000 Yeah.

00:27:57.000 Well, you mentioned them earlier, but back in there, 19th century, Alexis de Tocqueville sought churches, charities, local associations, and ordinary citizens doing the work of self government.

00:28:09.000 We've spent over a century, you know, moving that responsibility into Washington.

00:28:14.000 What have we lost in that trade?

00:28:16.000 I think we've lost a bit of our humanity, to be honest.

00:28:19.000 Like the essence of, well, we've lost that.

00:28:22.000 We've had the essence of the experiment hollowed out.

00:28:25.000 I mean, the American Republic, when Alexis de Tocqueville came here in the 1830s, he was kind of shocked and stung by the American Republic, in which he realized a lot of the self governance that he saw in action started at the local level, at the township level, and realized that people were solving.

00:28:42.000 Problems for themselves in a very efficient way.

00:28:46.000 And so I think you lose a lot of things in regards to kind of part of being human is the struggle, right?

00:28:51.000 We look at these challenges, go, we need to solve these.

00:28:54.000 We don't pass it off to somebody else for their responsibility.

00:28:56.000 But I also think it's hollowed out, Don, and this is a sad part.

00:28:59.000 I think it's hollowed out a lot of the family in many ways because we've replaced the family obligation and put in government institutions to take the role of the family, to take the role of the father.

00:29:11.000 And so we've hollowed out a lot of things that are very fundamental to the experiment, but we've also hollowed out the family.

00:29:17.000 Which I would also argue is very fundamental to the experiment being a long term success.

00:29:22.000 Well, I think last time you were on, we were talking about your book.

00:29:24.000 You wrote American Leviathan and made a documentary about the administrative state, right?

00:29:29.000 I mean, is the permanent bureaucracy now the biggest structural threat to the constitutional republic that we face?

00:29:36.000 It is.

00:29:36.000 How exactly do we break its power in a lasting way, right?

00:29:41.000 You have sort of Trump has been a cudgel against some of this stuff.

00:29:45.000 Right now, that works, but you get another, let's call it a more bureaucratic.

00:29:50.000 President, along the lines of everything we've experienced for the last 50 years, back in power, and that can go right.

00:29:57.000 How do you get that to have staying power?

00:29:59.000 So, one, I totally agree.

00:30:01.000 People want to talk about all these threats to the American Republic, to our country, all these things, China, Russia, whatever.

00:30:06.000 I think the existential threat to our way of life is the administrative state.

00:30:11.000 When you have unelected bureaucrats who are doing the real governing, and in many ways they are, their statutes and regulations, this is what frustrates me about Congress, Don.

00:30:19.000 They pass these massive four or 5,000 page bills that are kind of vague.

00:30:23.000 And then they let the bureaucrats fill in the lines with their statutes and regulations, which do the real governing because Congress, in many ways, is too afraid to take hard stances for fear it will hurt their reelection chances.

00:30:35.000 You know, I think the one thing that your dad has done in the second term, and I'm applauding, is he has shrunk the size of the bureaucracy, I think, to the smallest size since it's been since the 1960s about 350,000 fewer federal employees.

00:30:47.000 My magic number is 800,000.

00:30:49.000 So we're about halfway there.

00:30:51.000 You have to shrink the size and you have to shrink the scope.

00:30:54.000 I mean, the administrative state, the whole philosophy.

00:30:56.000 Is it should invade every aspect of our life until salvation is brought to that aspect of life.

00:31:01.000 So we have to shrink that.

00:31:02.000 The other thing that we've got to do, Don, to make it long term and structural, you've got to move any useful parts.

00:31:08.000 And I mean, useful is a very small part of the bureaucracy into the Article I legislative branch.

00:31:15.000 One of my reform ideas would take some of these unelected bureaucrats, put them into the Article I legislative branch as part of permanent committees, because then at some point there is some accountability to the elected representatives of the people.

00:31:28.000 So there's some structural changes that have to take place.

00:31:30.000 But the first start, And your dad's on the right path, you have to shrink the size of the bureaucracy.

00:31:35.000 So, good steps have been made.

00:31:37.000 We've got to continue that and then try to put some structural things in place.

00:31:40.000 Because you're right, there are tides to the politics in which some other person might come into power and go, I really like this administrative state.

00:31:47.000 We're going to have more bureaucracy.

00:31:48.000 We have to structurally change it.

00:31:50.000 And we haven't done that yet.

00:31:51.000 Well, I mean, it seems like the entire Democratic apparatus on the Democrat side is founded on that.

00:31:57.000 The idea, yeah, we want to drain the swamp, but the swamp is deep and the swamp has teeth.

00:32:00.000 They're not going to go easily, right?

00:32:02.000 People, I'm sure you've experienced this, you know, me functioning from sort of the real world and the business world and watching the political world.

00:32:08.000 Like, you know, some of these people could only survive in that bureaucracy.

00:32:13.000 They're very good at dealing with bureaucracy.

00:32:17.000 Wouldn't be so good if it didn't have that for a cover.

00:32:19.000 So the natural place is to go back to those places that protect you.

00:32:22.000 The other side is almost entirely dependent on that because when you break down their ideas, the ideas aren't that bad.

00:32:28.000 But when they're bolstered with endless taxpayer money and, you know, you can sell, you know, with enough of a marketing campaign behind anything, you can sell anything.

00:32:38.000 And to me, it actually seems that the second a Democrat gets back into power, this can all get to the point of no return very quickly.

00:32:46.000 Yeah, that's the one thing.

00:32:47.000 The structural changes, the thing that concerns me, you can bank on Democrats being Democrats.

00:32:52.000 Well, I would argue socialists and commies. 0.59

00:32:54.000 I mean, because that's basically what they're saying.

00:32:56.000 Well, no, they're saying it out loud.

00:32:57.000 You've seen the DSA headlines.

00:33:00.000 I mean, their party platform is very clear, and they're winning mainstream Democrat primaries right now.

00:33:05.000 So that's where the party is.

00:33:07.000 It doesn't mean there's not moderate Democrats in America.

00:33:10.000 I'm sure there are.

00:33:10.000 They just have no representation in Washington, D.C., because you can't win a major election without kowtowing to the radical faction of the party.

00:33:17.000 Right.

00:33:18.000 So I don't blame them, to be honest.

00:33:19.000 I don't blame them.

00:33:20.000 They're going to do what they're going to do.

00:33:21.000 I blame Republicans.

00:33:23.000 There are a lot of Republicans that do not have the political will and courage, first of all, to take back their legislative duties.

00:33:31.000 I mean, it's unconstitutional to subdelegate your legislative authority to unelected bureaucrats in the Article II branch.

00:33:37.000 That's a whole other conversation.

00:33:38.000 But you got to take back your legislative power, and you have to decide fundamentally this is antithetical to the Constitution Republic.

00:33:45.000 And we're going to go after it through legislative means to deconstruct the administrative state.

00:33:50.000 You do not see enough Republicans committed to that idea.

00:33:53.000 So, Democrats are going to be Democrats.

00:33:56.000 I don't worry about them.

00:33:57.000 It's the Republicans that I'm concerned about.

00:33:58.000 You've got to instill in them, and your dad's done a good job on a whole host of fronts, instilling a backbone in them to step up to the plate and do the right thing for the American people.

00:34:06.000 Yeah.

00:34:07.000 The five to seven Republicans who don't want to vote for the Save America Act.

00:34:12.000 I'm like, wait a minute.

00:34:13.000 So, you're okay with people not having ID or proof of right?

00:34:17.000 Like, you know, hey, people need ID to go get.

00:34:20.000 Government assistance, right?

00:34:21.000 They need an idea to get on food stamps.

00:34:24.000 It just doesn't get handed to them.

00:34:25.000 They need something, but they don't need it to vote.

00:34:27.000 And when I see, I understand very clearly why the Democrats don't want that.

00:34:33.000 Again, like everything else, of course we know why they don't want it.

00:34:37.000 They've been able to weaponize that.

00:34:39.000 But for a Republican to either not be able to see that sort of feels like it would be disqualifying of their position. 0.99

00:34:46.000 And if you see it and they turn a blind eye to it and they know what's going on, that's almost scarier than they're just too dumb to recognize it. 0.97

00:34:55.000 For self preservation, forget everything else. 0.90

00:34:57.000 For the self preservation of the Republican Party as a functioning strong party in the future, this is like a no brainer.

00:35:04.000 First of all, it's like a 75, 80% issue.

00:35:06.000 It's 83% across the board, meaning that's not 83% with Republicans, it's 83% with Americans.

00:35:13.000 Yeah.

00:35:13.000 And some of the demographics that you would think there's no way Black Americans really want photo ID.

00:35:18.000 Yeah, they do actually.

00:35:19.000 And it's about eight out of 10.

00:35:21.000 You're right.

00:35:21.000 I mean, for self preservation for the party, you would think self preservation of the country.

00:35:26.000 Right.

00:35:28.000 You cannot have a strong, thriving republic, which, by the way, I just want to make this point republics are fragile things.

00:35:33.000 Yeah.

00:35:33.000 Right.

00:35:33.000 They can go sideways in a hurry.

00:35:35.000 For the future of this country, you would think, well, we shouldn't have non citizens voting in this. 1.00

00:35:40.000 We shouldn't have non citizens counted in our census for apportionment. 0.77

00:35:44.000 We should actually just have Americans with photo ID voting in our elections to have free, secure, safe elections that both sides can trust on. 0.67

00:35:52.000 This is the thing that we have to get back to win or lose. 0.51

00:35:56.000 We have to get back to where we can actually trust the results.

00:35:59.000 And I think there are so many questions now because of what Democrats have done to call into question the integrity of elections that there's a lot of reform that has to take place.

00:36:08.000 Yeah, no, it's an issue.

00:36:09.000 I mean, honestly, the fact that we're even having this conversation is crazy.

00:36:14.000 It's like we're filming an episode of South Park or something like that, right?

00:36:16.000 It's like, you know, there are countries that have, you know, slid far, far closer to communism that still have those things, even in their countries, even in dictatorial systems where it's like, at least it's there.

00:36:28.000 And maybe that's part of the plan is that, hey, if people have no faith in their elections, they stop showing up for their elections.

00:36:33.000 They do.

00:36:33.000 The Democrats will capitalize on that.

00:36:35.000 So I imagine that's the plausible answer to why this is going on and why they may not even care on that side.

00:36:42.000 Because if our guys are dejected and they say, hey, it doesn't really matter, we won't show up, then they can win with at least the appearance of legitimacy.

00:36:51.000 I think that's still a win for them.

00:36:53.000 Yeah, veneer of legitimacy.

00:36:55.000 I would argue, yeah, it is kind of shocking.

00:36:56.000 You look at a lot of European Union countries, you have to actually show a photo ID to request an absentee ballot.

00:37:01.000 I think that's something we should be doing here.

00:37:03.000 You actually have to do it in person with a photo ID.

00:37:06.000 I want an absentee ballot.

00:37:07.000 But I do think you're right.

00:37:09.000 I think there's been a drive towards, you know, I can't, I don't make a difference.

00:37:14.000 What does it matter if I show up or don't show up?

00:37:16.000 It does, it's all rigged anyway.

00:37:18.000 So what's the point?

00:37:19.000 And it does drive a certain amount of apathy, which I would push back on that, Don, because I think these midterms coming up in November, I think it's going to come down to a handful of House races decided by less than a thousand votes.

00:37:30.000 It's going to decide the majority in the House.

00:37:32.000 My dad was in the House, served with Bob Beaupre out of Colorado.

00:37:35.000 You know how much Bob Beaupre won his first congressional race by?

00:37:38.000 123 votes.

00:37:39.000 Yeah.

00:37:40.000 So don't tell me.

00:37:41.000 The apathy is what's going to kill us.

00:37:43.000 If we allow them to win, and it's a psyop, don't get me wrong, but a win is a win as far as they're concerned.

00:37:51.000 And if they can get people to sit out and just be indifferent and they can pull off a couple seats and stack the courts, we know exactly what they want to do.

00:37:59.000 They've said it out loud.

00:38:02.000 They're determined to have a single party state.

00:38:04.000 They're not even being shy about it. 0.99

00:38:05.000 That's why we have the mass rapid invasion of illegal immigrants. 1.00

00:38:10.000 That's why they're trying to undermine the integrity of our elections. 1.00

00:38:13.000 There's a whole host of things because they are determined to have a single party state because they are kind of upset, to be honest, with the dirty little peasants who just don't know what's best for them.

00:38:23.000 So if you don't know what's best for you, we're going to rig the thing to make sure we get what we want and we'll be in charge and then tell you what to do with the rest of your life. 0.87

00:38:31.000 Yeah.

00:38:31.000 Oh, yeah.

00:38:31.000 No.

00:38:32.000 And that's the one that was shocking to me.

00:38:34.000 And I've seen this since 16 when my dad got in there.

00:38:36.000 So how could this brash billionaire from New York know what a regular person wants?

00:38:40.000 It's not that hard if you actually care.

00:38:42.000 Like it's.

00:38:44.000 Sort of common sense.

00:38:46.000 That's not so common in DC.

00:38:48.000 But the fact that they don't know that, these members of Congress, you see them talking about these things.

00:38:53.000 I'm like, man, have you ever even spoken to your constituencies?

00:38:57.000 No, I represent them in DC, but I don't have to actually listen to them.

00:39:01.000 I mean, I know better.

00:39:02.000 Most of these people don't have any real sophistication.

00:39:06.000 They got elected. 0.99

00:39:06.000 Maybe they got a good line of shit and they're good on the stump, or they were funded millions of dollars somewhere in the middle of America from California and New York, and that's easy to flood the airwaves. 0.99

00:39:18.000 You know, win an election. 0.99

00:39:19.000 But it's scary how disjointed they are, and frankly, how much disdain they just have for the people they chose to represent in Washington, D.C. Like, you don't have to do this job.

00:39:29.000 It's elective.

00:39:31.000 You know, and yet you chose to do it and then do the opposite.

00:39:33.000 And by the way, our side is just as guilty of this.

00:39:35.000 I've seen the amount of Republicans I've campaigned with that I'm like, wow, that was a great stump speech.

00:39:39.000 It's like, why are you doing the opposite next month when you're in D.C.?

00:39:42.000 It's like, well, you know, I just want to get invited to the cool person cocktail party in D.C.

00:39:46.000 Yeah, I know that we've lost sight of this.

00:39:48.000 And again, it's Republicans and of course, Democrats, but too many Republicans.

00:39:52.000 You were elected.

00:39:53.000 The whole purpose of the government of buying for the people is that every day you're supposed to be waking up as the elected representative who you've been made a steward of, the power and money given to you by the people to actually represent their interests and protect and promote them every day.

00:40:08.000 And I think a lot of people in DC have lost sight of that.

00:40:12.000 They're not talking with their constituents enough, they've insulated themselves.

00:40:16.000 There are a lot of different things that Congress has done to insulate themselves to make sure that you have like 80% incumbency retention in elections.

00:40:24.000 And I think that's another issue.

00:40:26.000 I'm not sure that I have a really solid answer for that, except for to take out as many of you as you can in primaries to replace them with people and for the people to be more engaged and to hold them accountable.

00:40:35.000 But there's a whole host of issues that goes back to why we've got to go back and say, do we have that moral obligation to the experiment still?

00:40:43.000 And you're right, it's not going to be easy.

00:40:45.000 As you mentioned earlier, it's not going to be easy.

00:40:47.000 It's going to be hard.

00:40:48.000 There's going to be a lot of slings and arrows.

00:40:50.000 And do we have the will and the courage to actually step into the arena and go, yeah, this is worth the fight?

00:40:56.000 Yeah, no, and listen, the lawfare, you know, I've seen it against my family and my father, especially.

00:41:03.000 You know, a lot of that's not just because they hate Trump.

00:41:06.000 To me, a lot of that was to send a message to anyone else who dares enter their arena.

00:41:12.000 Hey, guys, don't do it.

00:41:14.000 Don't do it.

00:41:15.000 Just stay in your place, stay in your lane.

00:41:17.000 You can be pretty comfortable.

00:41:18.000 You know, this is our space.

00:41:21.000 Don't even, you know, so someone who's built businesses, created jobs, maybe actually understands.

00:41:26.000 You know, the complexity of some of the things they're voting on, you know, as it relates to jobs or the economy.

00:41:32.000 Like someone who's actually done that, you know, may actually know more than someone who's never done any of that in their lives, but is a bureaucrat.

00:41:38.000 And so to me, a vast majority of that was, frankly, you know, they hate Trump, obviously, but it was to send a message to anyone else who may come in from the outside don't do it.

00:41:48.000 Sit at home.

00:41:49.000 It's not going to be worth your while.

00:41:50.000 And here's why.

00:41:51.000 It's a chilling effect.

00:41:52.000 I mean, not only did they target your dad for years and years with the lawfare to try and take him out, because they viewed him as an existential threat to the status quo.

00:41:59.000 Correct.

00:41:59.000 I mean, he really is.

00:42:00.000 He showed up in DC and then, and I think his biggest sin, Don, was essentially coming into DC in January of 2017 and announcing for all intents and purposes, yeah, I'm the duly elected representative of the American people.

00:42:12.000 I decide.

00:42:13.000 And the administrative state looking in horror, like, what do you mean you decide?

00:42:16.000 We decide.

00:42:18.000 And the fact that he rejected the premise, I think, is one of the greatest sins in the eyes of permanent DC.

00:42:24.000 But you're right.

00:42:25.000 The chilling effect, the way the administrative state ends ultimately is that enough of the American people, first of all, understand what's taking place.

00:42:32.000 And then have the courage to stand up and say something about it and demand accountability with their elected representatives.

00:42:38.000 But again, the administrative state, you know, you back a beast into a corner.

00:42:42.000 I call it the American Leviathan for a reason.

00:42:44.000 You back it into a corner, the fangs and the claws come out, and they realize this is an existential threat.

00:42:50.000 This whole movement, America First, Donald Trump, all that, it's an existential threat to their existence in the future.

00:42:56.000 And they are going to do everything they can to tamp down on any attempts to dismantle it.

00:43:03.000 And break it.

00:43:04.000 I mean, I love when your dad says, drain the swamp.

00:43:07.000 You know, the foundation of the swamp is the state.

00:43:09.000 If you break the state, you'll drain the swamp.

00:43:11.000 Yeah.

00:43:12.000 And they know that.

00:43:13.000 And that's why you see all this.

00:43:14.000 And there's people that, honestly, I've seen it with my own eyes here.

00:43:17.000 There's people, they believe, you know, what we believe and what we're talking about right now.

00:43:21.000 They've seen it with their, you know, then they get in that position of power and it becomes a little bit like Stockholm syndrome.

00:43:26.000 They're like, they fall in love with their captors a little bit.

00:43:29.000 It's like, well, maybe it's not as bad as I think.

00:43:31.000 And it's sort of wild.

00:43:33.000 So it takes a true.

00:43:35.000 You know, a truly special person to be able to do that, not fall in love with your captors, not, you know, give in a little bit and continue to fight because the system is, I don't want to use the word rigged, but it's very rigged in favor of that state.

00:43:50.000 And even those who are true believers against it, you know, tend to get sucked in to, you know, whatever it's offering.

00:43:58.000 But I would, the thing I noticed, my dad was in the house for five terms and it became very obvious there's a system that wants to conform you to its image.

00:44:06.000 Yeah.

00:44:07.000 For you to go along with the status quo.

00:44:09.000 And there are a lot of pressures.

00:44:10.000 There's a lot of incentives.

00:44:12.000 Actually, a lot of incentives to go along with the flow to be conformed.

00:44:15.000 And you're right.

00:44:16.000 It takes a unique individual with their principles in place and their values in place before they go in.

00:44:21.000 And I mean, that's one of the reasons we do it with the American Majority.

00:44:23.000 I'm trying to build out a farm team of conservative men and women at the state and local level because, A, that's important.

00:44:29.000 But also, if you can build a farm team of principled men and women who have their values and principles in place, a lot of Congress comes from the state and local level.

00:44:38.000 So it's just this whole long term.

00:44:40.000 Plan of how do we actually send more men and women, not only to the state and local level, to reform that and to do the right thing to Congress?

00:44:48.000 Because we are 100%.

00:44:49.000 There's some great people in Congress.

00:44:50.000 Don't get me wrong.

00:44:52.000 There are.

00:44:52.000 And at the same time, we need a lot more.

00:44:54.000 We tend to, well, you know, our side, we can't do this because those aren't the norms.

00:44:58.000 It's like, well, the other side breaks the norms every time it's convenient for them.

00:45:01.000 And then they use those same norms like, well, you guys can't do this because these are the norms.

00:45:05.000 It's like, wait a second.

00:45:06.000 Like, we're not even playing the same game so much of the time.

00:45:09.000 This is what frustrates me so much.

00:45:11.000 Well, these aren't the norms.

00:45:12.000 We've been playing by progressive rules for over 100 years, and the progressive rules are not the norm for a constitutional republic.

00:45:20.000 So please don't say that to me because they broke the rules on norms 100 plus years ago.

00:45:25.000 So stop playing by the rules.

00:45:26.000 And if we continue to play by their rules, Don, we will lose.

00:45:31.000 Break the rules.

00:45:32.000 Stop playing the game by their rules.

00:45:34.000 And there are too many Republicans that have accepted the premise well, this is just how it works in DC.

00:45:39.000 No, it's not how it's supposed to work at all in a constitutional republic.

00:45:43.000 So, Ned, you founded American Majority.

00:45:45.000 Tell us a little bit more about that.

00:45:47.000 But my understanding is to train candidates and activists at the grassroots.

00:45:51.000 And that's what we've sort of neglected.

00:45:53.000 It's wonderful to win the presidency, but if you don't have everything below it, honestly, none of it matters.

00:45:57.000 You know what I mean?

00:45:57.000 Like, it doesn't matter.

00:45:59.000 And I don't mean House and Senate.

00:46:01.000 I mean, like, dog catcher, school boards.

00:46:04.000 Republicans can't win the White House, but still lose local mayoral races, school boards, city councils, prosecutors' offices, and all of the institutions that shape daily life and expect anything to come out of it.

00:46:17.000 What Has the conservative movement gotten wrong about power?

00:46:20.000 And perhaps what's it getting right?

00:46:22.000 And what are you trying to change?

00:46:24.000 Wow, that's actually a very long answer.

00:46:26.000 I'll try and keep the answer short.

00:46:27.000 What have they gotten wrong about power?

00:46:29.000 Well, first of all, they have to understand what they're supposed to do with power when given to it.

00:46:32.000 Like you're given power for a reason.

00:46:35.000 I think conservatives have taken the easy way.

00:46:37.000 I think a lot of conservatives have come to DC.

00:46:39.000 They're kind of being DC, it's much easier.

00:46:43.000 The real lasting national generational change.

00:46:47.000 Begins at the local level.

00:46:49.000 And in many ways, I'm trying to reverse engineer what progressives did.

00:46:52.000 Progressive movements started as a state and local reform movement, percolated from the ground up, eventually got to DC and had such a broad base of power that it fundamentally changed our government, our society, and our culture.

00:47:05.000 Yeah, they took over every institution, every academia, sports, and then they built up.

00:47:11.000 Trump sort of did it the other way because it's not his way to start his dog catcher.

00:47:15.000 He's going to go for the big one, then we got to try to backfill, but we need both.

00:47:19.000 Yeah, no, I mean, the long march through the institutions that we talk about from the left, that was decades in the making as they just marched through every institution.

00:47:29.000 But the way we get to the generational change and the long term health of the Republic is we go back to that state and local and we gain political power on school boards, on city councils, on county commissions.

00:47:42.000 And I would argue listen, there's a lot of good things.

00:47:44.000 DC is important.

00:47:45.000 I don't want to dismiss that in any way.

00:47:47.000 There's a lot of important things that happen at the federal level.

00:47:50.000 State and local probably impacts your daily life far more than anything that happens in DC.

00:47:56.000 And if you want to see real change begin in your community, you've got to become more involved in the state and local level.

00:48:02.000 100%.

00:48:03.000 I mean, yeah, to me, it's a no brainer.

00:48:05.000 Get involved, get on your school board.

00:48:09.000 If your children aren't indoctrinated with the propaganda, guess what?

00:48:15.000 You don't have to try to spend their 20s and 30s trying to get them back when they realize it and they wake up and they lost 20 years of their life pushing this nonsense.

00:48:24.000 I mean, we just talked about voter ID and non citizens voting.

00:48:27.000 I mean, if a political machine fights basic election safeguards while simultaneously claiming to defend democracy, Is that just hypocrisy or is the confusion and distrust itself part of what keeps that machine in power?

00:48:43.000 I think we sort of touched on it, but I wanted to get a little bit more into detail on it.

00:48:46.000 Well, first of all, let's define democracy.

00:48:49.000 All right.

00:48:49.000 Whenever the left uses our democracy, what they really mean, Don, is the status quo administrative state.

00:48:54.000 We're in power, you're not.

00:48:55.000 That's what they mean by we have to defend our democracy.

00:48:58.000 Yeah.

00:48:58.000 And we're a republic, not a democracy, which they also tend to try to mix up into the same concept.

00:49:03.000 And they're not.

00:49:03.000 That was the next point I was going to make.

00:49:05.000 Like, can we also have the conversation? 0.99

00:49:07.000 We're a representative democracy.

00:49:09.000 We're a constitutional compound republic.

00:49:12.000 Pure democracy was actually rejected by the founder.

00:49:14.000 So it's antithetical to the founding.

00:49:16.000 But yeah, no, I do think, I mean, there's a whole host of things going on to detach the American people from being involved in government.

00:49:26.000 That was the whole point of progressivism, not to go back and delve too much into this.

00:49:29.000 But the whole idea of progressivism was to separate out the administration of government from the politics of it.

00:49:36.000 So they wanted to actually separate and have these bureaucrats.

00:49:39.000 Completely insulated from the American people.

00:49:42.000 No redress of grievances, no being elected or unelected by the people.

00:49:47.000 And so there's been this attempt over the last hundred and some years just to detach the American people from the real governing in America.

00:49:54.000 And once you start to get the feeling that my voice doesn't make a difference, it does make you more apathetic, more subservient, more compliant.

00:50:03.000 So I would argue the last 114 years, we've been experiencing this effort to really detach us from.

00:50:11.000 Republican values, and by I mean lowercase Republican values of citizenship.

00:50:16.000 And that's something, again, that I'm trying to do with Threat of Liberty.

00:50:18.000 We have to renew that.

00:50:20.000 We have to renew the obligation.

00:50:22.000 We have to renew that instinct of patriotism.

00:50:24.000 And even more so, Don, as you go through this documentary, I hope people watch it.

00:50:29.000 There are moments when you say, there's no way this is going to succeed.

00:50:32.000 Yeah.

00:50:33.000 And for people to be self defeating, go, I'm not going to be involved because it's not going to succeed.

00:50:37.000 Well, what would have happened if Washington said, you know what, screw this.

00:50:40.000 We're up against the greatest power?

00:50:42.000 Chilly tonight.

00:50:43.000 I'm not going to.

00:50:44.000 Yeah, I'm up against it.

00:50:45.000 I have no men, no supplies.

00:50:48.000 He went for it.

00:50:49.000 And I think we have to renew that spirit again of like, no matter the challenges or the cost or what we think we're up against, there are so many generations before us that actually put it on the line for us.

00:51:00.000 So I think we have an obligation to the generations that came before to renew the struggle, renew the restoration.

00:51:05.000 And we have an obligation to the generations that will come after us.

00:51:07.000 And it depends on what we have the ability to do right now.

00:51:12.000 And I hope we're up to the challenge.

00:51:14.000 As do I.

00:51:14.000 And I think, you know, again, the big one's going to be Save America because if you don't get that, you know, it makes absolutely no sense to me.

00:51:20.000 But, you know, what's the inside baseball, though, there, you know, in your mind?

00:51:25.000 If the Save America Act had a bunch of goodies for lobbyists who'd, you know, with the vote count look different in the Senate, you know, how much are lobbyists running the show in this one?

00:51:36.000 Or is it just Republicans being too weak to stand up for what not just their constituency, but literally 83% of the American people want?

00:51:43.000 I mean, I sort of feel like an 80 20 issue is the holy grail of politics.

00:51:47.000 It doesn't exist almost.

00:51:48.000 And yet, you know, this is such a big one and you still have that headache.

00:51:53.000 Well, if I were to, you know, if you look at like Tom Tillis, I would argue that he's such a petty little man is probably some resentment towards your dad.

00:52:02.000 That's how petty some of these guys are.

00:52:03.000 So we can talk about some of the other.

00:52:05.000 You see it with, what is it, Randy Fine down in Florida?

00:52:07.000 Like, if you don't fire influencer Alex Bruce Witts, I won't vote for any.

00:52:11.000 I'm like, well, you're going to tell that to the people who voted, what is it, like a plus 30 Republican district.

00:52:16.000 So you're not going to go along with the administration in a plus three majority because you want them to fire an influencer that was happened to be like an effective influencer in the campaign because you don't like what he said about you, which may or may not be 100% accurate.

00:52:29.000 I would argue in many ways, I just think it comes down to some real pettiness because of, you know, your dad has come in and in many ways displaced some of these people, whether it's Mitch McConnell, you name it.

00:52:42.000 And so there's some bitterness and resentment.

00:52:44.000 They're no longer running the party.

00:52:46.000 And so I would argue at a very basic level, it comes down to a great degree of pettiness because these people are so small and so selfish that they cannot get outside of themselves to look at for the good of the party, for the good of the country.

00:53:00.000 Maybe we should do this.

00:53:02.000 So, you know, I don't even want to know like lobbyists, all that stuff.

00:53:05.000 I just think it's like imperfect human nature on steroids.

00:53:09.000 Yeah.

00:53:11.000 So, you know, Ned, give us the bold prediction.

00:53:13.000 When America reaches, you know, 275 or 300, will we be a stronger constitutional republic than we are today?

00:53:21.000 Or will the administrative state have won?

00:53:24.000 What decides it?

00:53:27.000 The next 10 or 12 years.

00:53:28.000 I'm going to take a little bit of a qualified answer to that, Dawn, because I think in many ways it's very hard to predict the future.

00:53:35.000 It depends on what this current generation does.

00:53:38.000 I would argue that in many ways, the next 10 or 12 years are absolutely critical to the future of this country.

00:53:43.000 I mean, one of the things I teach at American Majority all the time is politics is policy.

00:53:47.000 You have to win political fights to be in the right place to implement the right policy.

00:53:50.000 So, my goal in many ways is to make sure we win the political fights to put the right people in the right place to make the right decisions for as long as possible.

00:53:59.000 And, you know, we got to win in 26, we got to win in 28.

00:54:02.000 We have to have political power in 2030 to do the census correctly.

00:54:05.000 If we do the census correctly, mass deportations can continue, differential privacy algorithm out the door, citizenship question, all that.

00:54:12.000 You can see 25 to 40 House seats and electoral votes move to red states.

00:54:17.000 Then I think I feel very confident about the future of the Republic because you will have sent the left, and by that I mean the Democratic Party, into the political wilderness at least for a decade, if not a generation.

00:54:27.000 So let's see where we are in six years and I'll give you a better answer.

00:54:32.000 Well, Ned Ryan, thank you very much.

00:54:33.000 Tell us again where people can find the documentary to check it out.

00:54:36.000 Share your kids, let them understand what's really happening because.

00:54:39.000 You know, they're not going to get that from the standard algorithm on TV.

00:54:42.000 They're not.

00:54:42.000 Threatofliberty.com.

00:54:44.000 It's for free.

00:54:45.000 Go watch it.

00:54:46.000 The companion book is coming out next week, Dawn.

00:54:48.000 It'll be on Amazon, but go watch it.

00:54:51.000 It's free.

00:54:51.000 It's 85 minutes.

00:54:53.000 I hope that people get a better understanding of who we are, but also come away inspired and go, I feel a deeper obligation to this experiment.

00:55:00.000 And by God, I'm going to fight for it.

00:55:02.000 Well, appreciate it, man.

00:55:03.000 Thank you very much for what you're doing.

00:55:04.000 And I look forward to having you back on soon.

00:55:05.000 Good luck with all of it.

00:55:07.000 All right.

00:55:07.000 Thanks, man.

00:55:07.000 I appreciate it.

00:55:10.000 Guys, thanks so much for tuning in.

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00:55:48.000 Thanks a lot, guys.

00:55:49.000 I'll talk to you all again very soon.

00:55:51.000 I hope you all have an awesome weekend and, uh, Yes, we'll talk on Monday.

00:55:55.000 Have a good one.

Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - July 16, 2026

The Thread of Liberty & the Administrative State, Interview with Ned Ryun | Triggered Ep.359

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