Scott Jennings: The Fight for Free Speech: Scott Jennings Speaks Out | DSH #1485

These are major problems.

I do think, you know, the country's fiscal health, I do think our debt, I do think those issues are also major issues that have to be solved over time.

But I just look at what's going on all over this world.

The barbarians are at the gate, man.

Yeah.

They're trying to take away free speech and they're trying to tear down Western civilization and they would love to tear up the United States and rip it out root and branch.

That's the fight.

We win that.

Then we can fight about the rest.

Okay, guys, we got Scott Jennings here.

He's working on a new book, A Revolution of Common Sense, and it's going to be a pretty revolutionary book, isn't it?

Yeah, it's amazing.

And thanks for having me on to talk about it.

President Trump, I met with him in February, pitched him on the idea.

I said, I think you're going to have an amazing first few months of your administration, and I want to write a book about it.

I think half the country deserves a good, solid defense of what you've done.

And that was in February.

Now we're in July, and I don't think it could have gone any better.

So the book comes out November the 18th.

It's available for pre-order right now, Amazon or wherever.

A Revolution of Common Sense by Scott Jennings.

Would be honored if you ordered it.

Well done.

I will.

That happened quick.

So February, you had the idea.

Yeah.

Well, you know, he said in his inaugural address, he used the phrase, we're having a revolution of common sense.

And when he said that, I thought, it's like the most genius branding of politics I can remember.

And so it gave me this idea for the book.

And then I met with him in early February.

But that's really sort of the new definition of the Republican Party.

We're the party of common sense, and the other party is the party of uncommon nonsense.

And the way he has positioned himself, it's made the Republican Party's coalition so much bigger because there's a lot of people who don't consider themselves to be political, but they do consider themselves to be common sense.

And the president talking about that and the way he did, I thought it was genius.

And it's the book title.

Yeah.

Now, thousands of people probably try to pitch him on books.

What do you think sold yourself on it?

Well, I told him I thought there'd be a hundred of the regular Washington types who's going to write a book crapping on him.

Yeah.

I mean, you see it every day in the media.

I mean, people, if Donald Trump does something, it must be wrong.

I mean, so the usual book writing suspects, I suspect, are going to write angry, false narratives about what he's done.

And I told him I thought at least one person who supported him and who thinks what he's doing to get the country back on track is right should write a book and have some access to him and the administration.

He agreed.

I interviewed several cabinet secretaries, several members of the White House staff.

I traveled with the president to Michigan on his 100th day in office.

And some of it is just my observations about the big issues that I think defined the president's first, you know, five or six months of Trump 2.0.

So it's a great mixture of interviews, observations, and analysis.

And

as I was, I was just turning in a copy-edited manuscript of it this week, and I was looking back on it thinking, look at all that's happened since February.

What a string of successes that he's had.

I love it.

What was it like on Air Force One?

That's a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

Yeah, it was amazing.

I hadn't been on it for 17 years since I last worked for President Bush back in the second term.

And so it was, you know, I remember when I would go out there in those days getting, you know, goosebumps when you pull onto the tarmac and Andrews.

I had the same feeling when I got on there.

And then I got on the plane and Secretary Hegseth was on and Dr.

Oz was on and a few other people and President Trump came on and Caroline Levitt was on.

And we had the greatest conversation.

And the president was, you know, having watched him in meetings and watched him interact with people, he is on top of so much.

He knows the daily cultural zeitgeist better than anyone.

He's on top of the political zeitgeist better than anyone.

And just watching him almost conduct like six meetings at the same time and be funny and gracious and a great host all at the same time, It's a real talent.

I mean, it's stuff you can teach.

This is why he's the president.

He has this innate talent to manage this job.

And so being on Air Force One with him and just observing him in action really was a great foundation for the book.

He's great with people and all sorts of people too.

He could adjust.

He's funny.

In addition to being the president, he's also the greatest working stand-up comedian in America today.

He's like Rodney Dangerfield and Don Rickles and Dave Chappelle all rolled up into one.

I mean, the dude is legit funny, but I watched him with people just being being totally gracious.

He listens.

One cabinet secretary that you'll read about in the book told me, you know, he gets in meetings.

He's happy to have you disagree.

I mean, he takes in a lot of information.

And so, you know, the way he makes decisions, taking in information, hearing dissenting opinions, but he's decisive.

Once he makes a decision, it's made.

This is the one difference that I think people miss about this administration versus the last.

Biden, who, you know, obviously had his issues with his own competence, but he was famously indecisive.

You know, nothing was ever really decided.

That's a terrible trait in a president.

We don't have that anymore.

I don't know who was running the country the last four years, but I know who's running it now.

Yeah, I love that.

You interviewed people close to him.

Which of those interviews stood out to you and like left an impact on you?

Well, a couple of the people that I think have been absolute stars are Marco Rubio and Scott Besson, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury.

I think they have both handled their jobs perfectly.

Rubio with multiple jobs, but you look at the big successes, particularly lately with Besson kind of quarterbacking the big, beautiful bill, doing the final negotiations to get that over the finish line, handling the tariff issues.

And then you look at Rubio, what they're doing internationally is nothing short of miraculous.

We have peace breaking out in the Middle East.

We have peace on the African continent.

We have Rubio, and Rubio's been involved in some of the domestic issues as they relate to the migration crisis.

These guys have handled major portfolios and done it perfectly.

And so a big difference between Trump 2.0 and 1.0, this time the administration and the personnel, I think, best match his leadership style.

Last time, you know, good people, but weren't necessarily always a match.

This time, these folks are here because they're a match.

They agree with him on the issues, but they know how to operate within his leadership style.

I'll tell you, observing the White House in person, the Oval Office is the nerve center, okay?

And the president's in the Oval Office.

This is not a passive administration.

He tells people what to do.

He expects you to go get answers.

He expects you to do your job.

I heard that repeatedly in my interviews that all roads lead to the president in the oval.

It's the way it's supposed to work.

The president is running the country.

Yeah.

When Biden was in office, I know multiple reporters saying he was never at the White House.

No, I mean, we don't really know, really know who was running the country.

I do know this.

There were a bunch of unelected staff people who had a lot more power than the Constitution would tell you that they ought to have.

I think there's a lot of questions about who was making decisions at the end of the last administration.

The use of the auto pen.

I mean, look, Joe Biden was mentally incompetent.

The reporting on this, don't take my word for it.

Take the word of the Democrats who've now gone on the record in all these books to say, yeah, we couldn't even get in to see Joe Biden.

He was hidden from us for the last two, three years of the administration.

There's a lot of legit questions.

I hope this investigation of him that Jamie Comer at Oversight is doing continues to ramp up.

I know he's calling people in right now.

Biden's doctor took the fifth the other day.

There's something to know here because for all the talk of constitutional crime.

All right, guys, Sean Kelly here, host of the Digital Social Hour podcast.

Just filmed 33 amazing episodes at Student Action Summit.

Shout out to Code Health, you know, sponsor these episodes, but also I took them before filming each day.

Felt amazing.

Just filmed 20 episodes straight and I'm not even tired, honestly.

Much like this, where it's just based off, you know, the code, the codes that are in the saline solution.

Code Health has been awesome.

Feel the drop and then go code yourself.

Crisis, I hear that on TV all the time.

The real crisis was the Biden administration, Biden's presidency, and lying to the American people about his capacity to serve.

Is he the worst president you've ever seen

in my lifetime?

Without questioning, it's not even close.

Not even close.

Look what he did.

He ran as a moderate.

I'm a deal-making moderate, totally outsourced his policy to Bernie Sanders.

They lied to us about his mental condition.

They lied to us about his competence.

You know, the decisions they made had disastrous consequences economically, internationally, militarily.

I can't think of anything they did that I agree with.

It's hard, right?

It's very hard.

And so, you know, you think about Trump coming in and what he wants to do.

Well, job one is digging out of a very deep hole.

But I, you know, it was the big bait and switch.

You know, the way Biden got in and the way he won his primary and that whole thing around that campaign was, oh, it's a return to normalcy.

We're going to be moderates.

We're going to heal the soul of the nation.

Nothing was normal about this.

Nothing was moderate about it.

And he was the most divisive president.

So

they said they would do, complete opposite with disastrous consequences.

Look what DEI did.

It actually ended some lives.

The ideological terrorism, you know, these radical ideologies forced upon the American people, forced upon corporations.

When Donald Trump won, it's like we took a wet blanket off the country's culture, in my opinion.

Everybody now has permission to resume normalcy, to resume common sense.

But Biden outsourcing all of this to these radicals in his party, radical ideologies, radical immigration policies, radical spending policies.

None of this was in the mainstream.

None of it was normal.

But they tried to sort of force us to all act like that it was.

It was not.

That's why the American people revolted.

That's why Donald Trump is back.

Yeah.

Did DEI work its way up to your profession, to traditional media?

Oh, I think every major corporation in America,

you know, maybe with some exceptions, but I think corporate America generally

felt like they had to engage in this because, you know, it was what the people who were running the country wanted.

I know ESPN did for sure.

I mean, and so, you know, look, whether it's media or anything else, or, you know, you're making, you know, washers and dryers, I don't know, but companies ought to run on talent.

The country ought to run on talent, hard work, work ethic.

And I think that's what Trump wants as a country and a culture based on talent and work ethic, not identity politics.

The Democrats don't know what they've done to themselves.

People hate this.

They hate identity politics.

They don't like it because it's like, well, if I work, if I'm talented and I work hard and I have good ideas, why shouldn't I be the most successful person at what I'm trying to do?

Why should I be aced out by someone because I didn't have the right identity characteristics?

It's totally antithetical to the American system, the American dream.

Foisting this on people, they may thought it was a good idea at the time, but it was political suicide for their party, I think.

Do you still believe in the American dream?

I do believe in the American dream.

I'll tell you right now,

this country, the Republican Party, the conservative movement, and average everyday people, I think, are more optimistic about the future of our country than they have been in years.

It's in some of the polling, right track, wrong track.

You can see there is green shoots of optimism popping up all over this country.

I think people do feel optimistic.

Some of it is we feel like we can be common sense Americans again.

Some of it is they feel like Trump's getting the economy back on track.

Some of it is, hey, at least we have a president again and at least we're respected in the world again.

I think Trump has instilled optimism in the country, certainly not among his political detractors.

You know, I listen to their broken hearts and tears every night.

Yes.

But for average, everyday working people who felt like the country was anything but common sense, just to feel like we're living in a culture of common sense again, I think engenders optimism about the future.

You know, I've got four kids.

I don't want them to grow up in a nonsense country where irrational behavior and irrational ideologies, radical radical ideologies are presented as mainstream.

I want them to grow up in a place where common sense and just being able to tell the truth still get you somewhere.

And I think that's what Trump is doing for our conservative movement, but for the country generally.

I love it.

What's the biggest threat to the country right now, in your opinion?

Biggest threat to the country?

Well, I think the biggest battle we're fighting is for the future of Western civilization.

Policy disputes, you're going to have them.

The future of the West, the migration crisis that is occurring, has occurred in the United States, that has occurred all over Europe.

The future of the West is at stake.

You heard the Italian prime minister talk about this to the president in the Oval Office.

She wants a partnership to save the West.

I think it's no exaggeration to say that we are in a fight for the future of Western civilization.

We're in a fight for the future of free speech.

If we don't win those battles, we're not going to be around to argue about any of the rest of it.

And so these are major problems.

I do think, you know, the country's fiscal health, I do think our debt, I do think those issues are also major issues that have to be solved over time.

But I just look at what's going on all over this world.

The barbarians are at the gate, man.

Yeah.

They're trying to take away free speech and they're trying to tear down Western civilization and they would love to tear up the United States and rip it out root and branch.

That's the fight.

We win that.

Nobody can fight about the rest.

I truly think if Kamala won, free speech would be on the line.

100%.

Look, lest you think it can't happen.

Look what happened in 2020.

The oldest newspaper in America, the New York Post, had their social media accounts shut down.

Why?

Because they accurately reported on the sun of the likely next president of the United States.

In Europe, they'll throw you in jail.

You post the wrong thing on Facebook.

There are damaging activities around free speech all over this world.

There are people who would love to silence.

I mean, look at Trump.

He had his social media accounts taken away at one point.

I mean, the impulse of the left is not to debate.

It's to silence the enemy.

That's the impulse of the left.

They would like to silence conservatives.

It's happening all over the world.

So we have to fight for this.

And this sort of epidemic of ill liberalism.

Now, I don't begrudge any liberal or any Democrat for having a point of view, but debating is key.

Silencing the opposition, that's when you run into trouble, I think, in a culture.

And our political culture, this is a nation founded on debate.

and on speech.

You take that away.

What do we have left?

Not much.

Not much.

Where are you at with the whole whole deportation issue?

Do you want to see more?

Do you feel like it's good right now?

I want to see more because we let 20 million people into the country.

I mean, the number of people, the volume of the flow of people coming into this country was, it's mind-boggling.

It's hard to imagine that volume over time, but it happened.

Now, because Trump is in, the border is effectively closed, but we still have a bunch of people in this country who shouldn't be here.

And I'm sure they're not all bad, but I'm also sure they're not all good.

And I'm also sure that we're a nation of laws and that there are people who are trying to come here legally.

They're trying to follow the rules.

Why should we not put people who came here illegally at the back of the line and reward the people who are trying to follow our rules?

Again, I go back to the future of Western civilization.

Mass migration is a crisis.

There shouldn't be no immigration, some legal immigration that can help the country.

If you're coming here to do something to help the country, fine.

Mass, unfettered mass migration from all over the world.

I hope you guys are enjoying the show.

Please don't forget to like and subscribe.

It helps the show a lot with the algorithm.

Thank you.

Not fine, but that's what was going on.

And so I think deportations are fine.

I think the American people expect it.

I mean, Trump told them he was going to do it.

He won the election.

It's part of his agenda.

And so they've ramped that up.

I think that's a good thing.

But we're going to have to do more.

And look, the immigration system probably has to be reformed somewhere down the line.

But to me, that's secondary.

Enforcement, internal enforcement, and maintaining effectively a closure of the southern border.

That's the main objective right now.

Yeah, it's not been easy.

You got a lot of states and cities pushing back on it.

Of course.

Well, you have Democrats all over the country who are effectively in a state of insurrection against the federal government.

They don't want federal laws enforced.

Look at Mom Dani in New York City.

He's saying, you know, if I'm mayor, I'm not going to allow federal immigration law.

We're not going to facilitate the enforcement of federal immigration law.

It's one of the biggest cities in the world.

Is that a good thing that you have local officials trying to thwart federal immigration law?

Of course it's not a good thing.

It's a nation of laws.

And so we're either going to follow them or we're not.

They were not being followed under Biden.

They are being followed under Trump.

I understand why the Democrats are mad.

I mean, the beating heart of their movement right now all revolves around unfettered immigration, benefits for illegal immigrants,

free health care, free tuition.

And the ethos is just get here and we'll find a way to make it work.

This is why we were such a magnet, you know, for so long.

That's over over now, but it has to remain that way.

I mean,

the next presidential election will have consequences because you're only ever one election away from the borders opening again.

That's scary.

If I were running for president in 2028 or a campaign, that's exactly what I would say.

You're only one election away from that border being opened again.

I don't think the American people want it.

We live through it.

It damages cities.

It's terrible for social services.

It's terrible for people who live here.

It's terrible for legal immigrants, people who followed the rules.

It's awful for them.

No housing, jobs are getting tough to get.

Yes.

Public services, social services, the strain on small towns along the border.

And look what happened on the election results on the border.

The Texas border towns totally went back to Trump.

Why?

Because they've been overrun.

They've been screaming for help.

And Joe Biden, not only did he not help them, he made it worse.

And so I just,

I continue to believe the immigration issue in the midterms and then the next presidential is going to be a big issue because people do not like what had happened.

And it's going to take several years, I think, to ultimately sort of get back to normal, some normal immigration, some normal internal enforcement.

We're not in a normal time because of the total number of people that came here under Biden.

Yeah.

What would you say to Gavin Newsom right now if you ran into him?

Well, number one, you're never going to be president.

I'm sorry to tell you.

Number two, I think what he's doing, look what happened this week with the raids on these farms.

Now, he's told a bunch of lies about this, but what's the truth?

They've got little kids, migrant little kids.

I don't know if they're here legally or illegally, but little kids picking marijuana in the fields in California.

And Gavin Newsom is mad at Donald Trump.

Is this good for our society?

Child, forced child labor in marijuana fields in California?

This is crazy, but you've got Democrats like Newsom passionately defending that system.

passionately attacking Donald Trump for saying, well, wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't have all this illegal immigration activity.

Maybe we shouldn't have unaccompanied miners here picking marijuana and farms.

And by the way, one of the farms, the owner was Gavin Newsom's donor.

I guess I realize why he's so interested and invested in it.

Wow.

It's terrible.

So I guess what I would tell him is, brother, screw your head on straight.

What you're doing is not only bad for America, but it's ultimately bad for Democrats.

When you're this radical,

When you're this out of the mainstream, it's corrosive to their whole party.

Mom, Donnie is the same in New York.

When you are this out of the mainstream, I don't know if if he's going to win.

Maybe he will.

It's going to hurt Democrats across the country because what we say is true.

They are largely a socialist organization.

They're out of the mainstream of American sort of political thought.

They're socialists.

They say communist things.

And he's going to be one of their stars.

It's going to hurt every Democrat in the country.

I mean, there are Democrats in New York who won't endorse him.

They inherently know how bad it is.

Richie Torres is one.

He won't endorse him.

They know how bad it is.

But if you think a Democrat in New York is worried about it, think about a Democrat in middle America trying to run with that around their neck.

It's going to be terrible.

You talk to Democrats every day.

Is there any middle ground with you?

Like, do you agree with them on anything?

Well, some Democrats, I think, have said some common sense things.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised with John Fetterman.

I think I had very low expectations for him, but that dude has been impressive to me because he has a backbone.

He has stood up to his party on the Israel issue, for instance, but on other issues, you know, even on immigration to some degree and some other things.

He's also, I think, he's trying to tell.

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Liz party, you can't run to the fringe and to the radical fringe on every issue.

They won't listen to him.

Look what happens to him when he gets out of line.

You know, they go into the newspaper and say he's crazy.

He ought to be in a straitjacket.

But I think he's been impressive.

So there's one.

I think Torres, who I mentioned, he's pretty liberal on most things.

He's had a backbone on the Israel issue, and they're trying to primary him in New York City over that.

So I think there's a few out there and a couple of my colleagues I love.

Van Jones, I think, is one of the most thoughtful progressives in the country.

He's liberal, but he's not illiberal.

Thoughtful, he likes debate.

He knows how to listen.

I mean, this is the ⁇ that would be their future if they stopped to think about it for a second.

But they're doing all the wrong things.

Illiberalism, censorship, silence the opposition, run to the fringe.

The trans stuff, too.

Yeah, there's a lot of hills that are willing to.

I mean, I used to call it an 80-20 issue.

It's a 95-5 issue.

I mean, there's no political constituency for this because everybody knows it's just common sense.

And so, but again, Donald Trump signs an executive order and every Democrat runs out there and every Democrat in the Senate voted to continue to try to allow boys to play in girls' sports.

So if I can't trust you on that, how could I trust you on anything else?

Why would I listen to you about taxes if you're trying to put boys on a girls' volleyball team?

I wouldn't.

Yep.

Shout out to Riley Gaines.

She's had a long battle, but she just got some traction.

Leah Thomas's records have now been removed.

And that wouldn't have happened if the Trump administration had not and Linda McMahon at the Education Education Department had not pressured Penn about this.

They forced them into this settlement.

They forced them to make the apologies.

Riley Gaines, a fellow Kentuckian.

She's a hero to us in Kentucky, University of Kentucky swimmer.

And

with her advocacy, the advocacy of a lot of other female athletes, and then Trump wins and McMahon steps up, they forced that.

If Harris had won, We'd still be going through this nonsense that men should play in women's sports and that we should pretend that it's okay.

And I've been been on TV with people who say, well, we just need to study it a little more.

We don't really know if there's a difference between men and women.

That's crazy.

We don't.

Millions of years of observation doesn't tell us that men and women are different.

Your high school biology class,

but I think average voters hear that and they think, what is happening?

This is the ideology of a political party in the United States of America.

So I'm happy to debate it because I think the more they stick with it, the more it hurts them.

I think this issue killed them in the November election.

Oh, 100%.

I mean, it was so devastating to Harris.

And she just had an inability to say no to the wackos on it.

I mean, I hate it for her.

I hate it for the country, but, you know, for Republicans, you're debating crazy people.

It sort of makes it easier to win.

I think that issue in immigration lost them the election.

Yeah, I mean, look, they were incompetent on a number of fronts.

Those issues turn big chunks of the working class of this country away.

And there's average, everyday working people who have kids.

What are they trying to do?

Get up, go to work, pay their taxes, play by the rules, give their kids a better life, and they got to come home and find out their daughter is changing in a locker room with some boy?

Yeah.

They were pissed.

And they're still pissed at the idea that people are still trying to bring it back.

And so Trump's a bulwark against this stuff.

But when I say we're fighting for the future of the West, I think this is part of it.

Absolutely.

Trying to redefine gender, trying to redefine.

these things that have been true for millennia.

That's this is what it means to tear down the West.

And so I think that's why Trump's presidency is coming at a pivotal time.

Yeah, Scott, where can people reorder the book?

Pre-order, right?

Go on Amazon or wherever you buy your books.

Type in a revolution of common sense, Scott Jennings.

You can pre-order it.

It comes out November the 18th.

You can get it in hardback.

I'll have an audio version as well.

And so it'd be great for Christmas.

You can order it for that.

But we're going to get it out just before Thanksgiving.

You can find all my social media.

I post about it sometimes on my ex, Scott Jennings KY.

I'm on Instagram.

We're on TikTok.

But I'm really appreciative of all the social media engagement over the last year.

Now we're having some robust debates on CNN.

And I do think the network deserves credit for actually having a debating show.

A lot of cable is just people sitting around agreeing with each other.

Debates.

The country's founded on debates.

Everybody I meet says, I love you and I love the debates.

I don't love you, but I love the debates.

The commonality is the debates.

So I encourage you to watch the 10 o'clock show on CNN because it's the only show like it.

Let's do it.

Thanks for your time, Scott.

Thanks, brother.

Yep, appreciate you my guys.

Peace.