Ep 252 | Why Conservatives Flipped to Supporting Trump’s Tariffs | The Glenn Beck Podcast

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How are the Trump tariffs going to impact you? Are we going to see the end of china's flow of fentanyl across our border and a return to american industry or is you know worst case scenario kickstart an unwinnable trade war with everyday americans suffering the most casualties my next guest has hope and i hope he's right welcome american historian and, of course, the evil mastermind behind Project 2025. Hey-ho, he must go.
President of Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts. Welcome.
man it's so awesome to be here i know it's so great to have you so great to have you you're like a brother from another mother i think except maybe you might be the evil twin i think some people might think that oh i know i want to talk about you being protested hey ho kevin must go um we'll talk about that in a minute. Let's talk about what's happening this week.
Heritage has been the thought leader for Republicans and for the conservatives forever, forever been against tariffs. That's changed.
Why? Bottom line up front, because when you have smart people which we do at heritage while the dogmas of the past are very important they're instructive the most important thing to pay attention to is what's going on right now and the diagnosis of president trump and his cabinet about what's going on right now with the deterioration of communities the destruction of manufacturing towns towns, of basically the manufacturing capacity of the United States is spot on correct. And so what we have said this week is we can support tariffs, particularly if they're reciprocal tariffs, and they are targeted on the worst violators.
What the White House has announced in this initial version, I think there's going to be modifications to this, is broader than that. We think that it would be very prudent to do this incrementally, to really implement the reciprocal tariffs first, with a zealous focus on China, so that regular business people who are huge Trump supporters, I'm not talking like the Fortune 10 guys.
I couldn't care less about them, really. We're talking about friends of ours who scraped, just like you did, to build your business.

They told me just on this trip to visit you, Glenn, that they're with Trump and they're with the idea of the reciprocity.

But something with such a broad brush might be more damaging than the president intends.

And Heritage, to sum up here, wants to support the sort of middle-of-the-road position.

And the reason we're able to do that is because we read reality truthfully. Something has to change with the economic system.
So I agree with that. I want to go deeper on that.
But I want to tell you, I got an email last night at 11 o'clock from a friend who said, I'm going to be out of business. I got an email at 5 a.m.
this morning from another friend who owns a car dealership, wildly successful. But all of his stuff are imports.
And he said, Glenn, all day yesterday with the tariffs, he said, all I did was field calls from people who said, cancel my order. He said, I am going to be out of business.
He's like, I don't know. They're both huge Trump fans.
I don't know what to do. What do you tell those people? Well, I'll tell you and your audience what I just mentioned to this new friend of mine who's a small business guy in the oil field services company.
People who may not be audience members of this show would think, oh, he's big oil. No, this guy pulled himself up from his bootstraps.
He happens to buy all of his equipment from China. He's done that from the same supplier since 1995, three-time Trump voter, Trump donor.
This guy is with him and also with the president and vice president and you and me on the diagnosis of the problem, which is that this economic system has to change. But what he's saying is there is no American factory where he can get that product.
He's happy to build one, but he needs a few years to do it. And so he said, Kevin, when I leave this lunch with you, I'm going at this small business to pay a $256,000 tariff bill that was retroactive.
And he said, I still love Trump. I'm still with him.
But he said, who do I send that cost to? He said, the people who are even smaller businesses, very few, very small oil and gas wells. And he said, they're going to go out of business and there's going to be a chain reaction that's very unintended here.
And this goes back to the first question you asked me, Glenn. This is why at Heritage, we think if there's a modified focus on reciprocal tariffs that focuses on China and the other bad actors, but there's a ramp, there's a timeline for these small businesses who are very aligned with trying to fix this problem to be able to adjust just like your friends, I think we can get there.
Because just as important as the economics and sort of the political economy argument here is sustaining the political will for this administration, which is doing so many other good things. So I have been against tariffs my whole life.
It's not one of, it's not something in my wheelhouse that I always talk about, but I have found myself, as I had to explain this to the audience earlier today on my radio program, I find myself in a unique situation to where everything we have been doing doesn't

work.

It doesn't work.

The world is being managed into decline.

Every single country in the West is being managed into decline so they can start something

brand new.

And we all know it.

It's the World Economic Forum. It is is not a conspiracy so that's one path let's just let everything down easy so there's not a great collapse and it will fold into this and it'll be a smooth transition that's not me i don't want that and the only person that has had the will and has had the ability to talk to people and say, we must do this, is Donald Trump.
And, you know, running a business and usually surrounded with really smart, good people. But I'm a risk taker, you know, and I'll notice that.
Yeah. And I'll walk into a room with my whole staff and i'll say okay forget everything you know we're gonna do this and everybody in my office will go good god glenn no what no no no let me explain and then i'll explain it and some of them will still disagree but when they leave the office we are all one team and i feel like election day, he was not subtle about this.
Tariffs are my favorite word. On election day, we all walked out of the office going, okay, you're the boss.
He sees something. He's the best negotiator I've ever seen.
He's a businessman and he's one of the first presidents, in fact, I think the first president since Reagan, that I actually trust loves America as much as me. Not in it for himself, in it for the country.
And so I'm sitting here going, I'm not going to give him a pass forever. I mean, a year from now, if we are really struggling because of this, I'm not going to be saying the same thing, but I think we have to let the chef cook the meal.
We came into the restaurant. We came because we knew he was the chef.
Let him cook the meal. You know, if you didn't have such a promising day job, we would make you a senior distinguished fellow at Heritage because you just summarized exactly where we are.
Yeah. And look, we're independent of the administration.
There might be some things eventually we disagree with. We have a difference of opinion about the tactics that are being used right now regarding the universal tariff.
Yes. But that can be true, and it's a quibble right now because I think it's going to change anyway because the larger thing is also true, and the larger thing is what you explained, which is Donald Trump's great love love for this country a cabinet that i think is the best assembled in modern history uh i think maybe since either lincoln or pot i first time i saw the cabinet all together i said look at the brains i haven't seen this since the founding era i think you're right i mean it's crazy i think only washington's and lincoln's rival them yes and i think by the way the star out of this and no disrespect to anyone else involved in the administration is going to be scott besant because given scott's success with the capital markets and he make is making the point that you just made preaching some calm there might be some some economic choppiness for an economic quarter or two but to your point anything that's beyond that signals that this isn't incremental enough in the change.
And I think as conservatives, we can recognize that the current status quo, the status quo is just not working. That basically what leaders of the West, especially in Davos are telling us is we're putting the patient, which is Western civilization on palliative care.
We're putting it in hospice And you stupid little people just need to get along with it. But by the way, we're going to do that.
And we, the elites, are going to make a hell of a lot of money on you. And what Donald Trump is saying, to be polite, is we're drawing a bright red line in the sand.
We're not doing that anymore. And to finish your analogy, he just did a monologue on this yesterday.
He's telling us, he's the only doctor who is telling us, you have cancer and you're going to die unless I take these steps. So you have a choice.
Go into hospice or if somebody else has something better, that's great. But this doctor is the only doctor telling me the truth that I know this is over.
It's over. It's true.
And forgive me for continuing the analogy. But what he's saying is just like when you get cancer treatment, even though the prognosis may be very good, there's going to be a little bit of short-term pain.
The treatment is going to be a little painful. I think the key thing is that we give him the opportunity to do the treatment so that in a year, this is working.

And what we're saying at Heritage is focus on the reciprocity,

focus on the trade abuser, starting with China,

and continue to communicate about fairness equaling free trade,

and then you're going to keep the center right that elected him together.

Okay, so here's the part of this that bothers me.

Tariffs will not do the job. Tariffs alone will not do the job.
You have to have not a continuation of the tax cuts we got eight years ago. We have to have actual tax cuts for people who are going to build businesses and hire people and a massive, I mean, chainsaw to regulation.
If he doesn't get those next two pieces in quickly, tariffs will have, if we're lucky, they'll have an effect that's not negative, but they will not have the impact that they need to have until he can unleash and take all the regulators off of this engine. Let it run.
When are we going to see that? And I don't think that's him. I think that's Congress.
That's Congress. When are we going to see that? Well, I keep being told by congressional leaders who I'll just describe the best of intentions to that it's going to happen by Easter.
but you know better than anybody in the country that not only were we close to Easter, but it's not going to happen by Easter. And especially given your point about, and it's so true, about the tariffs can't be standalone, they're never going to have whatever positive benefit they will have without being done in conjunction with deregulation, with cutting the budget, with the other treatment that you would give a patient with cancer.
Now I think the best would be by Memorial Day. And the problem with that is there will be several weeks for the media to completely misconstrue about the best aspects of a reciprocal tariff.
Hopefully, this is an encouragement to congressional Republicans to get with the program, to get this reconciliation bill done along the line to what you're saying. But this is really key, especially for the fuzzy math that's happening in Congress right now, to really cut the budget and to really pass real tax cuts.
Thank you. I mean, what I voted for was a guy who had a great team around him.
Best I've ever seen. And not just Republicans.
You know, Elon, RFK, Tulsi Gabbard. Okay, good team here.
All working towards the same thing. We all love our country.
Let's not destroy it. And I don't know what it's going to take for these republicans in congress to get to become awake what is it going to take before they get it you can't you have the democrats right now dismantling or trying to everything he's trying to do with the court system all that is none of that's real all real.
All that is, is delay, delay, delay, delay, delay. Donald Trump, what makes him so effective in the last few weeks is boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
You're constantly firing. You can't keep up.
What the hell is Congress doing? They're delay, delay, delay. He's got it in.
When is he going to say, I've had enough of you, Congress. I've had enough of you republicans who say you're going to do stuff don't you see the patient is critical i'm here the body is open up i've got blood on my hands right now i need the extra units of blood now he needs to say that right now right now right now and look i think that a couple of key figures in in this drama have really good.
Speaker Mike Johnson, I think, has been a real stalwart on this. He was beset with a truly ridiculous ploy by a member of his conference on proxy voting that ended up the only way for the speaker to handle this was to not have votes this week just because of the rules of Congress.
It's foolishness like that, political game playing for clicks and campaign funds by members of the Republican Party that have gotten in the way of it. Only, to your point, Glenn, only Donald Trump can break that.
He needs to take the verve with which he announced these tariffs yesterday and apply that to Congress getting this done now. And the beautiful thing about that beyond the substance is that politically, those on the political right who are Trump supporters but still not sold on this tariff regime will say, okay, I can be a little calmer about these tariffs if I see that they're being in conjunction, being done in conjunction with deregulation, tax cuts, and cutting the budget.
It's brilliant politics. All that to say I bet he does it pretty soon.
I hope so. to he must he has to and you know the nicest thing about this thing is he's not stupid he knows i i said the other day this is as dangerous to his presidency as him in august standing in open fields and talking to supporters in open fields.

That was dangerous for him personally.

That would get him killed.

What he's doing right now is that dangerous to his presidency.

And if it doesn't go right, he's not stupid.

He knows I only have a certain amount of time. Those midterm elections are coming.

And if our economy is not back roaring, he's not going to make it. He will be a lame duck.
And he knows that. Almost worse than the disagreement that some people have with the universal tariffs.
And let's be honest, that's what he has articulated yesterday. It's not what Heritage is supportive of, which is a reciprocal regime.

How do you argue against a reciprocal?

I don't know how you can. That's why when we started talking about it at Heritage, to your point about your team

always speaking with one voice, we do that same thing at Heritage. Sometimes it can be a little messy,

always very collegial, but we let everyone say their piece. And so for us even

to get there earlier this week took a process, but we started saying

who can argue against this? Well, the people who argue against it, they're either really

to be Everyone say their piece. Yes, yes.
And so for us even to get there earlier this week took a process. But we started saying, who can argue against this?

Yes.

Well, the people who argue against it have, they're either really tied to what they think is the success of an older regime and they've not caught up with the times.

Yes.

Or they have a vested interest in the regime.

Yeah.

So that's why I think it's really safe political ground for the president to focus on that. Right.

It is the free market in a distorted way, but not from our distortion. If you want to put 5% on me, fine.
I put 5% on you. Now we have a free market on your turf.
You want to go to zero, let's go to zero. And yet.
And yet what the the folks who are saying you can't support reciprocal tariffs at Heritage is they have faith that we can have a one way approach to this, that the United States can say we are free trade absolutist, even when other people are imposing all these tariffs. It's nonsense.
It's also economic nonsense. And it's that kind of stuff that has meant that our manufacturing sector, along with over-regulation and other ridiculous policies, has become damaged.
And we do have to resurrect that. But as the vice president said at an event at Heritage on Tuesday, he said, folks, let's remember, this is going to take a generation to sort itself out.
This is why we have to get going with it right now. More with Kevin in just a minute.
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All right, back to Kevin. So let me ask you, Stu on the air with me said today, he said, so Glenn, what's his plan? Because i keep hearing jobs are going to return which i want to talk to you about that jobs are going to return but then i also hear reciprocal tariffs well they they don't work together you're not going to have the reciprocal tariff and the jobs coming back so what's our real goal i an answer to that.
What's your answer? I think in the medium or long term, some jobs might come back, but I acknowledge your point. I think the goal is to reset the sort of Davos, Brussels, kind of New York driven economic system in the world in which you have to bend your knee at the altar of globalization at the expense of American interests.
And Trump's trying to completely upend that and bring people to the negotiating table. I am convinced, Glenn, that the purpose of this might be heartfelt from Trump's economic philosophy on reciprocal tariffs, but it's really about fairness.
It's really common sense. He's just trying to get every other country who's benefited

on the backs of Americans to acknowledge that and come play ball with us. And he's confident enough in our ability to withstand the short-term economic pain that he'll be able to get us there politically and that the jobs will return because American investors will say, I've got confidence, I've got certainty, clarity enough to be able to invest.

So one of the things that I... because American investors will say, I've got confidence, I've got certainty, clarity enough to be able to invest.

So one of the things that I felt important to express today again on my program

is the jobs that are coming back.

It's not the steel mill in Pittsburgh.

If we rebuild Pittsburgh and make the same steel mills, we're just going to create a second disaster in pittsburgh and it cannot be those jobs um the jobs we need right now we need people building the new nuclear power plants we need we need our government here's something our government can do build and build a cloud fortress i don't want you doing anything on the inside of that building i want the private sector to do all the cloud servers let them lose money when there's a new server farm that needs to be built but i I want castles protecting all of that infrastructure. There are things that we need to do that look over the horizon because in five years, you know, you look at what's happening with the Pentagon.
And they're talking about, you know, well, we've got a new F-47 coming out in 10 years. In 10 years? In 10 years, you may not need to use aluminum, steel, wires, anything.
You don't know what the world's going to be like in 10 years. Stop the long-term planning.
Just build the infrastructure for what you know is going to be there. Does Trump get that? I think he gets it.
Actually, I know he gets it. And I know that his key advisors get it.
And I want to underscore the point that you make because I work with a lot of smart people and they, over the last several months, have convinced me that what you said is about the new nuclear power plants is the single most important thing that we can do. Economically, from the standpoint of our government, it actually will help to foster, help to cultivate the kinds of new jobs that are very likely to come to the United

States if we don't allow the Chinese Communist Party to continue to lap us. And it really is a

revitalization of the energy industry. It can include fossil fuels and all the other renewables,

but the really key thing is the new nuclear, because we're not going to be able to implement

the AI possibilities that are so beneficial to the economy without that energy. And if you don't have that, you have nothing.
That's right. You might as well be, and no offense to Brazil, but I didn't grow up in Brazil.
I like America. I like being the leader.
You have to have that energy, and China is building it like crazy. And I think it's the new thorium right right new thorium plants they're safer than already the safest form of energy ever devised by man nuclear power but it's much safer it's smaller and that's where the government can help unleash unleash the private sector support the things that are building true if i hear one more thing about infrastructure and we're going to build roads i'm going to lose my mind i'm going to lose my mind you go to other countries their airports are beautiful we're sitting with soviet air you know uh style um air traffic control rooms where they're passing oh here's a plane let me get it to you on paper

what are you crazy but if we're going to pass things let's actually do it with people who know

what the future looks like and to that point it's it's important for us to acknowledge the worst

case scenario it's also important to aspire to the best case scenario and i just want to paint

that picture for a moment with you because we're not surprising i know i know this is why we're Thank you. scenario it's also important to aspire to the best case scenario and i just want to paint that

picture for a moment with you because we're not surprising them i know like i know this is why

we couldn't talk before we went on we had to have this conversation now what you're talking about

the new nuclear and government's role in that which is to get the regulation out of the way

because the capital is there i mean you know some of these same people they're ready to roll with

this get the government out of the way that alone but then secondly they can also the government can

make sure that they're really secure that they can't be infiltrated by particularly the CCP or that. Yes.
Do that. Do the reciprocal tariffs.
Do the deregulation. Continue with Doge.
Pass the tax cut. Cut trillions of dollars from the federal budget.
And guess what? Even if the next two economic quarters are choppy, guaranteed, history will tell you, the United States in a year is going to be ascended again. And the really key thing politically going into the midterms, the naysayers right now who, unlike you and me, who are offering some constructive criticism as friends of the administration on the universal tariffs, you know, these people don't want this to succeed at all.
They will have to say this is, in the golden age of america that's right there you do you do just what you said we actually take our place back prior to the progressive era to when we were the first building trains across continents when we were actually leading the world you know coming up with electricity, lighting up cities. You know, Paris did it before we did.
We're the ones that gave the world a great white way. You know what I mean? And I don't mean that in a racist way.
Of course not. You know what I mean.
But you have to make that. Yeah, you have to.
Have to. Because most people are like, great white way.
What does that mean? Back in Roberts. Right.
It must be, you know, white you know white christian i know so um but we have that opportunity and i i'm so glad in looking at his cabinet i know they know that elon musk he's got to be i mean he doesn't golf he's in that golf cart with donald trump all the time he's got to be like hey i was just bored was just thinking about this. You know what's right on the horizon.
I know they're having those conversations. Donald Trump's uncle, do you know what Donald Trump's uncle did? So you know who Nikolai Tesla was? Sure.
Okay. Nikolai Tesla, first part of his life, great guy coming up with stuff where he's just like, I want to give it to the world free because it's going to change everything.
He's screwed by Edison so many times that about halfway through his life, he's like, and he goes dark. He goes really dark.
And he starts designing things like death rays, things that will shake buildings apart. I mean, really scary stuff to where the government was like, I think we need to have somebody around him.

So they put George H.W. Bush's father in, unbeknownst to Tesla, that he was working

for the government, put him in as his private secretary. When Tesla dies, they need somebody

to look at all these plans and say, which ones should be classified, which ones shouldn't be?

Which ones can we send back over to his homeland? which ones do we need to keep under lock and key they got the smartest guy they could find from mit it was donald trump's uncle what a small world and i heard the president praise his uncle for being the smartest guy he's ever right i didn't know why yeah interesting isn't that crazy and it'sive about the opportunity we have. I think God has given us the opportunity.
And him being able to recognize that kind of thinking and that kind of future. And ideological strictures off to the side.
I mean, Trump's a pragmatist. I do know him to be a conservative, maybe not as dogmatic as you and I might be prone to be, which could be both a compliment and a friendly criticism, but it is what it is.
He loves this country. And I think if people remember that, maybe they can reignite the trust we ought to have in him because of the love he has for this country, being a brilliant CEO and assembling to your point, Glenn, the smartest men and women I have seen in certainly my career in politics as a historian of this country, I think at least since Lincoln's cabinet.
And this is why, even though I would have rolled out the tariff regime differently, and they may still land on that, I actually think it's going to be okay. I agree with the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, that let's be calm.
Let's not think the sky's falling because there was one bad day on the stock market. And let's also remember, the stock market the economy let's be focused on the well-being of fellow americans for once you know i started i started my show today again we are like brothers um i started my show today with i want to tell you what the tariffs mean but everybody today is going to talk about the stock market you care about the price of eggs and your parts to fix your car all all of these things.
Yes, there's a place to worry about the stock market because hopefully people will invest and they'll have money in their 401k. But that's not right now.
That's not right now. Right now is what is this going to do to my meal? What is this going to do for me trying to buy clothing or anything? Repair my car.
That a really big concern it's it's huge and what donald trump has reminded us of what jd vance personifies is that's conservatism yes not this other stuff and to that point i had a friend he's concerned he said kevin the stock market's down 1500 points as we sit here talking what should i do i said buy low it's going higher he said when i have no idea. I'm just a lowly historian, but it's going to go higher at some point because all of this is going to work.
The administration is going to do the tweaking and modifying. Keep in mind, this, I think, is all set up to be recalibrated, waiting for our supposed allies to come to the negotiating table.
And just imagine on that point, if I may, Glenn, the European Union leader, the most protectionist racket on the planet, complaining about this tariff regime. This is the kind of thing that Trump is right-sizing.
So let's talk about European Union here for a second. They absolutely believe, because they've done it to their own countries.
I mean, Germany has no industrial base practically at all now that's insane i mean you know because i have a memory that's kind of a good thing you know in other ways that's a really bad thing they are very good at making things um and that's all being that's all being dismantled entirely they actually believe the best thing is to just slowly put this dog down until we can rise up the new thing. The people don't want it, and they know that.
Otherwise, they'd be out saying, here's what we're doing. But they're not.
They're denying all of it. Conspiracy theory, until it's provably not.
Those people, though, if they actually believe that, that's so insane, they might just say, you know what, let's go for a trade war. It'll speed it up, and we'll get what we want.
You know, we're not dealing, it's like the Democrats and the Republicans, all the lawfare. That's not legitimate.
They don't actually mean those things. Their intent is to slow everything down and stop it and grind it to a halt.
That's sabotage. We have the same kind of partners in some countries that are supposedly friendly to us.
What gives you confidence that they're not going to do that? Well, I think that many, if not most of those countries in Europe are going to try. To stop it? To sabotage.
To participate in the sabotage. Because nothing since Trump was elected in 2016 has gone according to their plan other than, quote-unquote, defeating him in 2020.
And I know this because of all the work that Heritage does in Europe trying to revitalize conservatism. And of course, it's our kind of conservatism where people are actually in charge, not the squishy kind of nonsense where you're prioritizing the GDP over the well-being of everyday hardworking people.
But to your point, I think they're going to try. In fact, there are already signs just 24 hours in after this tariff announcement that the EU is going to do that.
But what gives me confidence that we will prevail over that is not just because of the competence of Trump and his administration and their awareness that that's what they're going to do, but also that regular people in the United States and in these European countries have had enough. They may not win every election, but they've won enough.
In fact, they've won a couple that have been overturned, that it's really deteriorated the power of the EU Brussels regime. This is why it's imperative that President Trump and his administration really get a detailed plan on reciprocal tariffs going, because it's so hard to argue against that, both in substance and in the rhetoric.
I think that's the place to land this plane. And I'm going to keep talking about it until we see it happen at Heritage, because this regime that they've announced yesterday, in other words, makes them more vulnerable to the sabotage that the European Union and some other nefarious actors around the world are going to do.
Just in terms of the geopolitics of it, I think the administration needs to be just a click more savvy about what they can do to shoot them in their kneecaps figuratively. I think that's one of the things.
It's really the only real error I think he has made this time around is Canada is the biggest example. I agree.
You had Trudeau out. You had that over, over.
And I don't know why. I mean, I appreciated the 51st governor.
I really did. No one deserved it more than Trudeau.
No one. It couldn't have happened to a nicer communist.
But we just shot ourselves in the foot. You know, now we're going to get the other guy who was, what's his name? Carney.
And he's a product of the EU. And look, as much as we disagree with him, the guy is no dummy.
Yeah. He is a savvy snake.
Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. And it's the same Kamala Harris thing.
Nobody really voted for him. Nobody voted for him.
There's a trend here. Yeah, there is a trend.
But we can't do that. Tell me about Mexico and Canada on this.
Where do you think we're going with that? I agree with you on how the politics of this has cut in Canada. And I think it was a tactical error.
I thought it was funny at first. Yeah, it was.
Other media types said, Kevin, I'm going to force you to say something you have a difference of opinion with with president trump and it's always been the canada thing because it would be nice to have pierre paliev as the prime minister of canada interestingly i never thought i would say this about any socialist especially the socialist president of mexico she understands trump and she's been playing ball so she already to she can, being governed by the cartels, has helped with some of the southern border issues, some of the fentanyl trafficking. I'm not suggesting she's perfect, but she recognized politically there was a win there for her country and for her.
But the problem with the tariffs is that it actually empowers her to have more leverage. and that's why if you're emphasizing fairness and reciprocity, we're on much stronger political ground where you can isolate those countries, whether it be Mexico or Canada or the Netherlands, who don't want to play ball.
We at Herod see this plain as day. Sometimes we're wrong about things.
Hopefully we have the humility to always say that. On this, I just see it so clearly that if the president can stick to that, he actually builds stronger friendships with countries around the world.
And you eliminate the possibility of the sabotage that the EU wants to lead.

I just had Liz Trusson there last week. She knows this story.
Yes, she does.

She said, England is a failed state. The prime minister, former prime minister, said, my country is a failed state.
And not just any country. Yeah, England.
The single most important country, ironically, for why we have the American Republic. Think about what that means for the western civilization but there's a lesson there with all due respect to the former prime minister i love her as you know we have her at heritage often she was right and moved too fast not because moving fast was the wrong policy call it was the wrong political call And there's a lesson in how this tariff rollout has happened this week from the Trump administration.
It's too much, too soon, without tilling the soil politically, economically, along with all of these other changes that need to happen, the tax cuts, the deregulation, doge, and so on, to be able to continue to close the sale with

the American people, which Trump is the master of. Back with more with Kevin in just a second.
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Let me just go through because I'm looking at the clock. We're going to be out of time.
tell me about Pam Bondi I'm

I'm looking at the clock. We're going to be out of time.
Tell me about Pam Bondi. I met her.
I don't know her. She's one of the few in the administration.
I just don't know. I have been so underwhelmed with the Justice Department.
I really expected to see the Justice Department at least start turning their own people in and saying you broke the law you're going to jail i mean what we found out about the fbi and the intelligence community just yesterday about the hunter biden laptop stuff we now have all of the proof we we have all of the transcripts on it where where when are we going to start seeing people go to jail? It's a fair question. And I agree with wanting to see people be in jail.
And I would have thought that we would have seen that by now. Me too.
And we were disappointed at Heritage that all of the fanfare over the Epstein files sort of landed like a lead balloon. And I'm not quite sure why that happened, but I'll answer your question directly about the attorney general herself.
I think she's awesome. And in fact, I saw her earlier this week at the swearing-in ceremony of the number three of the Department of Justice, and that is the point that I want to make.
She's been understaffed. The pace of getting these appointments confirmed has been very slow.
It's always slow. It's particularly slow.
And she's understaffed at a time that the DOJ, more than any other time in American history, must be upended. And I gather informed speculation here, but mostly speculation.
She's waiting to get the full team in place to be able to do that. Her track record would suggest, and she herself, great woman of virtue, would suggest that it's going to happen.
But I thought it might have happened by now. Yeah.
Okay. I just don't know her.
I still have confidence in her, but I understand why you're asking the question. Good, good, good.
What have you been most impressed with and least impressed with? I guess Canada, you're going to say, but. Yeah, least impressed the Canada thing, but it's a quibble.
I mean, it really is relatively minor in the big scheme of things most impressed with after the quality of people in the cabinet the pace the pace of change and that's why at heritage we're we're giving the president some grace on an announcement that's a little bit different than what we thought it's going to be okay um and they know that been breathtaking it has been and then after that the vice president already had very high expectations but jd.D. Vance is a generational thinker.
He's a visionary. Even people who disagree with him or don't quite know him well yet, when they get the opportunity to spend some time with him or really think about what he's saying, he's doing the kind of forward-looking thinking that you specialize in, you have in your career.
he's the kind of guy bringing in is the guy bringing in a lot of these not necessarily doctrinaire conservative voices but people who love america to be able to build the america of 2040 and 2050 rather than fight the political battles of 1985 how is he on the because i hear people say one of two things on conservatives one of two things you know he's in with all the silicon valley people and the silicon valley people they don't love america um i hear that or i hear he's fantastic um how is he on the founding documents how is he on the what our true root is i think he has a phenomenal understanding and it would be good to get great professor back to do an interview with him. I will say this on the Silicon thing.
I know why people ask that. I had that question too years ago.
But it would be like me. Well, Kevin was a professor.
Went to the University of Texas, trained by a bunch of libs. How can we trust him? Maybe people thought or think that.
And most people would say that's not, in fact, something to be worried about. And so I know J.D.
Vance personally and have seen him in action politically. He was at Heritage a few days ago.
And color me biased because I think there's a man of tremendous virtue. He loves this country.
He knows the founding documents. He maps to them rhetorically, but also to the specific question about Silicon Valley.
A lot of those guys and gals are really with us more than we might recognize and and i'm a late comer to realizing that and i tell them that but we ought to have a certain wariness about the whole group because if they get inside the administration like the worst ones get inside the administration this is what zuckerberg has been trying to do we ought not think that they're our friends they're not our friends and you know what you know i don't have anything about against jeff bezos but he's so hepped up on steroids now and i know i mean he's like you know it's it's it's a little frightening um and and and some of the other people are not people i would necessarily trust but there are good people that are there in the administration the ones that i worry about are the ones around the administration that you see um but it's always the hangers-on you know whether it's those folks or the hangers-on and washington around members of the senate um uh i'm glad to hear you say that. Let me ask you,

you have talked about a second American revolution.

Liz Truss said to me,

this time we might be on the right side.

I appreciate it.

I said, well, we may not let you in.

You burned our White House down,

and we don't let things go.

But what does that mean to you?

Because I think we're actually in it right now. I think that's what happened.
The people don't really understand. It was a peaceful revolution.
It wasn't just an election. And he is now going, I mean, I think he called it Liberation Day to hearken back to World War II, because that's when all this crap started.
All the things that were happening, you know, that are not working now started after Liberation Day. And so now it's kind of like a Liberation Day away from all the things that had to be done back then but no longer work.
Do you think that's accurate? 100%. Oh, wow.
And what I mean when I say second American revolution is precisely what you're talking about. But to be one step more precise, I think about Alexander Hamilton.
When he leaves Yorktown as Washington's aide-de-camp and the war's over, the couple years of peace negotiations, as you know well, goes back to being a practicing attorney in New York City. What does he do? He and his wife get really involved in building institutions, little institutions, lawyers

associations, social clubs, institutions that are less formal than schools, although they

participated in building some of those. But that happened up and down the states.
In Virginia,

huge upheaval, and it was an upheaval, from the old light churches to the new light churches. That's an institutional change in addition to being a theological one for Virginians.
That's the American Revolution implemented. The warfare was vital to winning.
The politics, vital. But the real work always is in society and culture.
And I think that's what we're doing now. November 2024 was Yorktown.
And after this Yorktown in 2024, each of us gets the opportunity, whether we have platforms like you and I do, or whether we have people who are in your audience or friends of heritage who aren't in the limelight, but doing even more important work to do what? to rebuild the American dream locally through our institutions.

And that's why the administration cannot forget that as you're trying to repair the damage done to those people,

that you do so in a way that keeps them on the team.

The politics of this are vital.

Vital.

The one thing I worry about is these are true burn-it-down revolutionaries we're fighting against. I mean, the They're terrorists.
They are terrorists. If a Republican would have done one of the things that they have done to Tesla, my gosh, they're terrorists.
I want to believe that's not the average Democrat, that the average Democrat on the fringes is starting to go, that's not good, and seeing maybe we don't have a plan. I'm hoping that's happening.
And it's not the average Democrat that is doing these things. However, you're just as guilty if you're just saying i don't care about it these people if they're this now when the when the justice stuff or the the you know district court stuff doesn't work they're out what what's your feeling on making it without somebody just being deadly i think it's going to get worse before it gets better you know that from firsthand experience with these people i do too all of us at heritage do for doing what for speaking the truth cheerfully thankfully it is a sliver of the left but to your point it's the one that controls sort of normal democrats need to take control of them and it's their moral obligation to do so and i think it's going to get worse before it gets better first but secondly it almost has to before those normal democrats have the courage to say, we're going to take this over.

And obviously, we don't want any of this to happen, but I just think that it's likely that it will,

because the administration is just getting its real momentum when it comes to the reform that needs to happen.

And what they're reforming are those centers of power for these people who have no other religion than government power.

It's like telling you and me, you can't go to the church of your choice tomorrow. Are we getting rid of the Department of Education? Absolutely, brother.
It's why I'm in public policy. Heritage, the day that bill was signed in 1979, called for its elimination.
And I'm so proud to be at heritage period but all of us it doesn't matter we work on economic policy foreign policy when that executive order was signed there's probably never been greater jubilation at heritage and the reason is that's how you kill the monster it is not talking about individual people even liberal teachers i I wish the best for them. But the monster that is the monster.
It is. Not talking about individual people, even liberal teachers.

I wish the best for them. But the monster that is the institutionalized hatred of this country, but most importantly, the reality that imprinted on our nature is self-governance and the education department hates that.
Whenever you're in town, will you come back? Every time, brother. I love it.
Thank you. Thanks.